Jingo

round.
    “What’s wrong with that? What goes up must come down,” said Colon.
    “You don’t know?” said one of his dining companions. “You don’t have minarets in Ur?”
    “Er—” said Colon.
    “We have plenty of donkeys,” said Lord Vetinari. There was general laughter, most of it directed at Colon.
    One of the men pointed to the dim interior of the minaret.
    “Look…see?”
    “A very narrow, winding staircase,” said the Patrician. “So…?”
    “There’s nowhere to turn at the top, right? Oh, any fool can get a donkey up a minaret. But have you ever tried getting an animal to go backward down a narrow staircase in the dark? Can’t be done.”
    “There’s something about a rising staircase,” said someone else. “It attracts donkeys. They think there’s something at the top.”
    “We had to push the last one off, didn’t we?” said one of the guards.
    “Right. It splashed,” said his comrade in arms.
    “No one is pushing Valerie off’f anything ,” snarled Beti. “Any one of you tries anything like that and, s’welp me, you’ll feel the wrong end of—” He stopped, and a wide horrible grin appeared behind the veil. “I mean, I’ll give you a great big soppy kiss .”
    Several men at the back of the crowd took to their heels.
    “There’s no need to get nasty,” said the guard.
    “I mean it!” said Beti, advancing.
    The cowering guard cringed. “Can’t you do anything with her, sirs?”
    “Us?” said Lord Vetinari. “’fraid not. Oh, dear…it’s going to be like that business in Djelibeybi all over again, Al.”
    “Oh dear,” said Colon, mugging loyally. The crowd, or at least that part that thought itself sufficiently far away from Beti, started to grin. This was street theater.
    “I don’t know if they ever got that man down off the flagpole,” Vetinari went on.
    “Oh, most of ’im, they did,” said Colon.
    “Tell you what, tell you what,” said the guard hurriedly, “suppose we get a rope round it—”
    “—her—” Beti growled.
    “Her, right, and then—”
    “You’d need at least three men up there and there ain’t no room!”
    “Sir, I’ve got an idea,” whispered one of the guards.
    “I should make it quick,” said Colon. “’cos there’s no stopping Beti once she gets going.”
    The guards held a whispered argument.
    “ We’d get into trouble if we do that! You know all that stuff we were told about the war effort! That’s why they were all confiscated !”
    “ No one will miss it for five minutes !”
    “ Yeah, but you want to tell the Prince we lost one ?”
    “ All right, but do you want to explain to her ?”
    They both looked at Beti.
    “ And they’re easy to steer, after all ,” one whispered.
    “Valerie?” said Sergeant Colon.
    “There is a problem?” Beti demanded.
    “No! No. It’s a fine name for a donkey, N—Beti.”
    “No one is to do anything,” said one of the guards. “We will return.”
    “What was all that about?” said Colon, watching them go.
    “Oh, they’ve probably gone to get a carpet,” said someone.
    “Very nice, but I don’t see how that’d help,” said Beti.
    “A flying one.”
    “Oh, right ,” said Colon. “They’ve got one of those up at the University—”
    “Ur has a university?”
    “Oh, indeed,” said the Patrician. “How do you think Al learned what a donkey looks like?”
    Once again, laughter dispelled doubt. Colon grinned uncertainly.
    “I’m really getting good at this stupid idiot stuff, aren’t I?” he said. “It just sort of happens!”
    “Marvelous,” said Lord Vetinari.
    There was another angry braying from far above.
    “Trouble is, they’re all locked up because of the war effort,” said someone behind them.
    A piece of mud brick shattered on the ground nearby.
    “The way it’s thrashing around up there, it’s going to fall off anyway.”
    “Perhaps I should persuade her to come down,” said the Patrician.
    “Can’t be done, offendi. You can’t get past on the stairs, you can’t turn it round, and it won’t come down backward.”
    “I shall consider the situation,” said the Patrician.
    He ambled back into the tavern for a moment, and returned. They saw him enter the door and they heard him climbing the staircase.
    “Should be good,” said a man behind Colon.
    After a while the braying stopped.
    “Can’t turn around, see. Far too narrow,” said the elevated-donkey expert. “Can’t turn around, won’t go backward.