Jingo

the Watch, then .”
    “ Are you mad? We’ve been talking to him! They will be…inquisitive .”
    “ Good point. I know …”
    Faifal gave Colon a big grin.
    “I did hear the entire army has marched away to En al Sams la Laisa ,” he said. “But don’t tell anyone.”
    “Have they?” Colon glanced at the other men. They were watching him with curiously deadpan expressions.
    “Sounds like a massive place, with a name like that,” he said.
    “Oh, huge,” said his neighbor. One of the other men made a noise that you might think was a suppressed chuckle.
    “It’s a long way, is it?”
    “No, very close. You’re practically on top of it,” said Faifal. He nudged a colleague, whose shoulders were shaking.
    “Oh, right . Big army, is it?”
    “Could easily be very big, yes.”
    “Fine. Fine,” said Colon. “Er…anyone got a pencil? I could’ve sworn I had one when—”
    There was a noise outside the tavern. It was the sound of many women laughing, which is always a disquieting noise to men. * Customers peered suspiciously through the vines.
    Colon and the rest of the crowd looked around an urn at the group by the well. An old lady was rolling on the ground, laughing, and various younger ones were leaning against one another for support.
    He heard one of them say, “What did he say again?”
    “He said, ‘That’s funny, it’s never done that when I’ve tried it!’”
    “Yeah, that’s true!” cackled the old woman. “It never does!”
    “‘That’s funny, it’s never done that when I’ve tried it,’” Nobby repeated.
    Colon groaned. That was the voice and tone of Corporal Nobbs in storytelling mode, when wood could scorch at ten yards.
    “’scuse me,” he muttered, and forced his way through the press to the gateway.
    “Have you heard the one about the ki…the sultan who was afraid his wife…one of his wives…would be unfaithful to him while he was away?”
    “We haven’t heard any stories like these , Beti!” Bana gasped.
    “Really? Oh, I’ve got a thousand and one of ’em. Well, anyway, he went and saw the wise old blacksmith, right, and he said—”
    “You can’t go round telling stories like that, cor—Beti,” Colon panted as he lumbered to a halt.
    Nobby realized that a change had come over the group. Now he was surrounded by women who were in the presence of a man. A known man, he corrected himself.
    Several of them were blushing. They hadn’t blushed before.
    “Why not?” said Beti nastily.
    “You’ll offend people,” said Colon uncertainly.
    “Er, we are not offended, sir,” said Bana, in a small humble voice. “We think Beti’s stories are very…instructive. Especially the one about the man who went into the tavern with the very small musician.”
    “And that was pretty hard to translate,” said Nobby, “because they don’t really know what a piano is in Klatch. But it turns out there’s this kind of stringed—”
    “And it was very interesting about the man with his arms and legs in plaster,” said Netal.
    “Yeah, and they laughed even though they don’t have the same kind of doorbells here,” said Nobby. “Here, you don’t have to go—”
    But the group around the well was dispersing. Water jugs were being picked up and carried away. A kind of preoccupied busyness came over the women.
    Bana nodded at Beti. “Er…thank you. It’s been very…interesting. But we must go. It was so kind of you to talk to us.”
    “Er, no, don’t go…”
    A faint suggestion of perfume hung in the air.
    Beti glared at Colon. “Sometimes I really want to give you a right ding alongside the lughole,” she growled. “My first bloody chance in years and you—”
    She stopped. There was a crowd of puzzled yet disapproving faces behind Colon.
    And things might have ended otherwise had it not been for the braying of the donkey, from above.
    The stolen donkey, easily pulling away from Nobby’s inexpert tether, had wandered off in search of food. She vaguely associated this with the doorway to her stable and therefore with doorways in general, and so had wandered through the nearest open one.
    There had been some narrow spiral stairs inside, but her stall was pretty narrow and steps didn’t worry a donkey that was used to the streets of Al-Khali.
    It was only a disappointment when the steps came to an end and there was still no hay.
    “Oh no,” said someone behind Colon. “There’s a donkey up the minaret again .”
    There were groans all