The Fifth Elephant

though.” He gave a little laugh. “We shall have to see how fast he is.”
    “His wife says he’s very softhearted— Ruston! Don’t you dare do that! If you going to do that sort of thing, do it upstairs! ”
    The baron looked only moderately ashamed, but readjusted his clothing anyway.
    “Bandits!” he said.
    “Yes, they could be a problem at this time of year,” said Wolfgang.
    “At least a dozen,” said the baroness. “Yes, that should—”
    Wolf grunted, upside down.
    “ No , mother. You are being stupid. His coach must get here safely. You understand? When he is here…that is a different matter.”
    The baron’s massive eyebrows tangled with a thought.
    “Plan! King!”
    “Exactly.”
    The baroness sighed. “I don’t trust that little dwarf.”
    Wolf somersaulted onto his feet.
    “No. But trustworthy or not, he’s all we’ve got. Vimes must get here, with his soft heart. He may even be useful. Perhaps we should…assist matters.”
    “Why?” snapped the baroness. “Let Ankh-Morpork look after their own!”

    There was a knock on the door while Vimes was having breakfast. Willikins ushered in a small thin man in neat but threadbare black clothes, whose overlarge head gave him the appearance of a lollypop nearing the last suck. He was carrying a black bowler hat like a soldier carries his helmet and walked like a man who had something wrong with his knees.
    “I am so sorry to disturb Your Grace…”
    Vimes laid down his knife. He’d been peeling an orange. Sybil insisted he eat fruit.
    “Not Your Grace,” he said. “Just Vimes. Sir Samuel if you must. Are you Vetinari’s man?”
    “Inigo Skimmer, sir. Mhm, mhm. I am to travel with you to Uberwald.”
    “Ah, you’re the clerk who’s going to do all the whispering and winking while I hand around the cucumber sandwiches, are you?”
    “I will try to be of service, sir, although I’m not much of a winker. Mhm, mhm.”
    “Would you like some breakfast?”
    “I ate already, sir. Mhm-mhm.”
    Vimes looked the clerk up and down. It wasn’t so much that his head was big, it was simply that someone appeared to have squeezed the bottom half of it and forced everything up into the top. He was going bald, too, and had carefully teased the remaining strands of hair across the pink dome. It was hard to tell his age. He could be twenty-five and a big worrier, or a fresh-faced forty. Vimes inclined to the former—the man had the look of someone who had spent his life watching the world over the top of a book. And there was that…well, was it a nervous laugh? A giggle? An unfortunate way of clearing his throat?
    And that strange way he walked…
    “Not even some toast? A piece of fruit? These oranges are fresh from Klatch, I really can recommend them…”
    Vimes tossed one at the man. It bounced off his arm, and Skimmer took a step backward, mildly appalled at the upper class’s habit of fruit hurling.
    “Are you all right, sir? Mhm-mhm?”
    “Sorry about that,” said Vimes. “I was carried away by fruit.”
    He laid aside his napkin and came around the table, putting his arm around Skimmer’s shoulders.
    “I’ll just take you into the Mildly Yellow drawing room where you can wait,” he said, walking him toward the door and patting him on the arm in a friendly way. “The coaches are loaded up. Sybil is re-grouting the bathroom, learning Ancient Klatchian and doing all those other little last minute things women always do. You’re with us in the big coach.”
    Skimmer recoiled. “Oh, I couldn’t do that, sir! I’ll travel with your retinue. Mhm-mhm. Mhm-mhm.”
    “If you mean Cheery and Detritus, they’re in there with us,” said Vimes, noting the look of horror deepen slightly. “You need four for a decent game of cards and the road’s as boring as hell for most of the way.”
    “And, er, your servants?”
    “Willikins and the cook and Sybil’s maid are in the other coach.”
    “Oh.”
    Vimes smiled inwardly. He remembered the saying from his childhood: too poor to paint, but too proud to whitewash…
    “Bit of a tough choice, is it?” he said. “I’ll tell you what, you can come in our coach but we’ll give you a hard seat and patronize you from time to time, how about that?”
    “I am afraid you are making a mockery of me, Sir Samuel. Mhm-mhm.”
    “No, but I may be assisting. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to nip down to the Yard to sort out a few last minute things.”

    A quarter of an