The Fifth Elephant

went on. “Ought to make it by dark, do you think?”
    “But you can’t go, Your Grace!”
    Vimes turned, very slowly.
    “Would you repeat that, Mister Skimmer?”
    “I mean—”
    “We are leaving , Mister Skimmer. What you do, of course, is up to you.”
    He sat down inside the coach. Opposite him, Sybil made a fist and said “Well done!”
    “Sorry, dear,” said Vimes, as the coach turned. “It didn’t look like a very good inn.”
    “Serves them right, the little bullies,” said Sybil. “You showed them.”
    Vimes glanced out and saw, at the edge of the crowd, a black coach with dark windows. He could make out a figure in the gloom within. The luckless guards were looking at it, as if for instructions. It waved a gloved hand languidly.
    He started counting under his breath.
    After eleven seconds Inigo trotted alongside the coach and jumped onto the running board.
    “Your Grace, apparently the guards acted quite without authority and will be punished—”
    “No they didn’t. I was looking at ’em. They’d been given an order ,” said Vimes.
    “Nevertheless, diplomatically it would be a good idea to accept the explan—”
    “So that the poor buggers can be hung up by their thumbs?” said Vimes. “No. Just you go back and tell whoever’s giving the orders that all our people can go anywhere they like in this city, d’you see, whatever shape they are.”
    “I don’t think you can actually demand that , sir—”
    “Those lads had old Burleigh and Stronginthearm weapons, Mister Skimmer. Made in Ankh-Morpork. So did the men on the gate. Trade, Mister Skimmer. Isn’t that part of what diplomacy is all about? You go back and talk to whoever’s in the black carriage, and then you’d better get them to lend you a horse, because I reckon we’ll have gone a little way by then.”
    “You could perhaps wait—”
    “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
    In fact the coach was outside the gates of the town before Skimmer caught it up again.
    “There will not be a problem with either of your requests,” he panted, and for a moment there appeared to be a touch of admiration in his expression.
    “Good man. Tell Detritus to turn around again, will you?”
    “You’re grinning, Sam,” said Sybil, as Vimes sat back.
    “I was just thinking that I could take to the diplomatic life,” said Vimes.
    “There is something else,” said Inigo, getting into the coach. “There’s some…historical artifact owned by the dwarfs, and there’s a rumor—”
    “How long ago was the Scone of Stone stolen?”
    Inigo’s mouth stayed open. Then he shut his mouth and his eyes narrowed.
    “How in the world did you know that, Your Grace? Mmm?”
    “By the pricking of my thumbs,” said Vimes, his face carefully blank. “I’ve got very odd thumbs, when it comes to pricking.”
    “Really?”
    “Oh yes.”

    Dogs had a much easier sex life than humans, Gaspode decided. That was something to look forward to, if he ever managed to have one.
    It wasn’t going to start here, that was definite. The female wolves snapped at him if he came too close, and they weren’t just warnings, either. He was having to be very careful where he trod.
    The really odd thing about human sex, though, was the way it went on even when people were fully clothed and sitting on opposite sides of a fire. It was in the things they said and did not say, the way they looked at one another and looked away.
    The packs had changed again, overnight. The mountains were higher, the snow was crisper. Most of the wolves were sitting at some distance from the fire that Carrot had made—just enough distance, in fact, to establish that they were proud wild creatures that didn’t have to rely on this sort of thing but close enough to get the benefit.
    And then there was Gavin, sitting a little way off, turning to look from one to the other.
    “Gavin’s people hate my family,” Angua was saying. “I told you, it’s always wolves who suffer when werewolves get too powerful. Werewolves are smarter at escaping hunters. That’s why wolves much prefer vampires. Vampires leave them alone. Werewolves sometimes hunt wolves.”
    “I’m surprised,” said Carrot.
    Angua shrugged. “Why? They hunt humans, don’t they? We’re not nice people, Carrot. We’re all pretty dreadful. But my brother Wolfgang is something special . Father’s frightened of him and so’s Mother if she’d only admit it, but she thinks he’ll make the clan powerful, so she