The Fifth Elephant

respect; the rider is often a mere courtesy detail, but in this case it was not so. The Watch had put the final swell and polish on Carrot’s muscles.
    And there was that faint smile. It was the sort you backed away from.
    “Good day. Who is in charge here?” he said.
    There was a certain amount of comparison of status, and a man cautiously raised his hand.
    “I’m the deputy mayor, y’honor,” he said.
    “And what is this event?”
    “We’m about to bait a wolf, y’honor.”
    “Really? I myself own a wolfhound of unusual strength and prowess. May I test it against the creature?”
    There was more mumbling among the bystanders, the general consensus being: Why not? Anyway, there was that smile…
    “Go ahead, y’honor,” said the deputy mayor.
    Carrot stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled.
    The townspeople watched in astonishment as Gaspode walked out from between their legs and sat down. Then the laughter started.
    It died away after a while, because the faint smile didn’t.
    “Is there a problem?” said Carrot.
    “It’ll get torn limb from limb!”
    “Well? Do you care what happens to a wolf?”
    Laughter broke out again. The deputy mayor had a feeling he was being got at.
    “It’s your dog, mister,” he said, shrugging.
    The little dog barked.
    “And to make it interesting, we’ll wager a pound of steak,” said Carrot.
    The dog barked again.
    “Two pounds of steak,” Carrot corrected himself.
    “Oh, I reckon it’s going to be interesting enough as it is,” said the deputy mayor. The smile was beginning to prey on his nerves. “All right, boys—fetch the wolf!”
    The creature was dragged into the ring of hurdles, slavering and snarling.
    “No, don’t tie it up,” said Carrot, as a man went to wrap the halter around a post.
    “It’ll get away if we don’t.”
    “It won’t have a chance, believe me.”
    They looked at the smile, dragged the muzzle from the wolf, and leapt to safety.
    “Now, just in case you were havin’ second thoughts about our agreement,” said Gaspode to the wolf, “I suggest you look at the face of the bloke on the horse, right?”
    The wolf glanced up. It saw the wolverine smile of the face of the rider.
    Gaspode barked. The wolf yelped and rolled over.
    The crowd waited. And then—
    “Is that it ?”
    “Yes, that’s how it normally goes,” said Carrot. “It’s a special bark, you see. All the blood in the victim congeals in an instant, out of sheer terror.”
    “It hasn’t even worried the body!”
    “What,” said Carrot, “would be the point of that?”
    He got down from the horse, pushed his way into the ring, picked up the body of the wolf and flung it across the saddle.
    “It grunted! I heard it—” someone began.
    “That was probably air being expressed from the corpse,” said Carrot. The smile still hadn’t gone, and at that point it suggested very subtly that Carrot had heard the last gasp of hundreds of corpses.
    “Yeah, that’s right,” said a voice in the crowd. “Everyone knows that. And now what about the steak for the brave little doggie?”
    The people looked around to see who had said this. None of them looked down, because dogs can’t talk.
    “We can forgo the steak,” said Carrot, mounting up.
    “No, w—No you can’t,” said the voice, “A deal’s a deal. Who was risking their life here, that’s what I’d like to know?”
    “Come, Gaspode,” said Carrot.
    Whining and grumbling, the little dog emerged from the crowd and trailed after the horse.
    It wasn’t until they were at the edge of the town square that one of the people said “Oi, what the hell happened there?” and the spell broke. But by then both horse and dog were traveling really, really fast.

    Vimes hated and despised the privileges of rank, but they had this to be said for them: At least they meant that you could hate and despise them in comfort.
    Willikins would arrive at an inn an hour before Vimes’s coach and, with an arrogance that Vimes would never dare employ, take over several rooms and install Vimes’s own cook in the kitchen. Vimes complained about this to Inigo.
    “But you see, Your Grace, you’re not here as an individual but as Ankh-Morpork. When people look at you, they see the city, mhm, mhm.”
    “They do? Should I stop washing?”
    “That is very droll, sir. But you see, sir, you and the city are one. Mhm, mhm. If you are insulted, Ankh-Morpork is insulted. If you befriend, Ankh-Morpork