The Fifth Elephant

touched it. My ancestor was a guard who witnessed it, see. He…got accelerated promotion, you could say. I’m sure you understand me. After that, we were a little more prepared. We should have been looking for a new one in fifty years or so in any case. I’m glad this one was made in the large dwarf city of Ankh-Morpork, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it turns out to be an excellent keeper. Look, they’ve even got the currants right, see?”
    “But Albrecht could have exposed you!”
    “Expose what ? He is not king, but I will be very surprised if one of his family is not king again, in the fullness of time. What goes around comes around, as the Igors say.” The king leaned forward.
    “You have been laboring under a misapprehension, I reckon. You think that because Albrecht dislikes Ankh-Morpork and has…old-fashioned ideas, he is a bad dwarf. But I have known him for two hundred years. He is honest and honorable…more so than me, that I’m sure of. Five hundred years ago he would have made a fine king. Today, perhaps not. Perhaps…hah…the ax of my ancestors needs a different handle. But now I am king and he accepts that with all his heart because if he did not, he’d think he wasn’t a dwarf, see? Of course he will now oppose me at every turn. Being Low King was never an easy job. But, to use one of your metaphors, we are all floating in the same boat. We may certainly try to push one another over the side, but only a maniac like Dee would make a hole in the bottom.”
    “Corporal Littlebottom thought there’d be a war—” said Vimes, weakly.
    “Well, there are always hotheads. But while we argue who steers the boat, we don’t deny that it’s an important voyage…I see you are tired. Let your good lady take you home. But…as a nightcap…what is it, Your Excellency, that Ankh-Morpork wants?”
    “Ankh-Morpork wants the names of the murderers,” mumbled Vimes.
    “No, that is what Commander Vimes wants. What it is that Ankh-Morpork wants? Gold? So often it is gold. Or iron, perhaps? You use a lot of iron.”
    Vimes blinked. His brain had finally given up. There was nothing left anymore. He wasn’t certain he could even stand up.
    He remembered a word.
    “Fat,” he said blankly.
    “Aha. The Fifth Elephant. Are you sure? There’s some good iron now. Iron makes you strong. Fat only makes you slippery.”
    “Fat,” parroted Vimes, feeling the darkness closing in. “Lots of fat.”
    “Well, certainly. The price is ten Ankh-Morpork cents a barrel but, Your Excellency, since I have come to know you, I feel that perhaps—”
    “Five cents a barrel for grade one high-rendered, three cents for grade two, ten cents per barrel for heavy tallow, safe and delivered to Ankh-Morpork,” said Sybil. “And all from the Shmaltzberg Bend levels and measured on the Ironcrust scale. I have some doubt about the long-term quality of the Big Tusk wells.”
    Vimes tried to focus on his wife. She seemed, inexplicably, a long way away.
    “Wha’?”
    “Er…I caught up with some reading when I was in the embassy, Sam. The, er, notebooks. Sorry.”
    “Would you beggar us, madam?” said the king, throwing up his hands.
    “We may be flexible on delivery,” said Lady Sybil.
    “Klatch would pay at least nine for grade one,” said the king.
    “But the Klatchian ambassador isn’t sitting here,” said Sybil.
    The king smiled. “Or married to you, my lady, much to his loss. Six, five and fifteen.”
    “Six dropping to five after twenty thousand, three and half across the board for grade two, I can give you thirteen on tallow.”
    “Acceptable, but give me fourteen on white tallow and I’ll allow seven on the new pale suets we are finding. They are making an acceptable candle, look you.”
    “Six, I’m afraid. You haven’t plumbed the full extent of those deposits, and I think it may be reasonable to expect high levels of scrattle and BCBs in the lower layers. Besides, I think your forecasts about the amount of those deposits are erring on the optimistic side.”
    “Wha’ BCBs?” murmured Vimes.
    “Burnt Crunchy Bits,” said Sybil. “Mostly unbelievably huge and ancient animals, deep fried.”
    “You astonish me, Lady Sybil,” said the king. “I did not know you were trained in fat extraction?”
    “Cooking Sam’s breakfasts is an education in itself, Your Majesty.”
    “Oh well, far be if for a mere king to argue. Six, then. Price to remain stable for two years—” The king