The Fifth Elephant

the dwarf.
    “I don’t meet many, sir. Not in Ankh-Morpork,” said Vimes, hoping that this would pass for a diplomatic answer. It seemed to satisfy the king.
    “I went to Ankh-Morpork once, when I was a young dwarf,” he said, walking toward a long table piled high with scrolls.
    “Er…really?”
    “Lawn ornament, they called me. And…what was it…ah, yes…shortass. Some children threw stones at me.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “I expect you will tell me that sort of thing doesn’t happen anymore?”
    “It doesn’t happen as much. But you always get idiots who don’t move with the times.”
    The king gave Vimes a piercing glance.
    “Indeed. The times…But now they are always Ankh-Morpork’s times, see?”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “When people say ‘we must move with the times’ they really mean ‘you must do it my way.’ That is what I’m tellin’ you. And there are some who would say that Ankh-Morpork is…a kind of vampire. It bites, and what it bites it turns into copies of itself. It sucks, too. It seems all our best go to Ankh-Morpork, where they live in squalor. You leave us dry.”
    Vimes was at a loss. It was clear that the little figure now sitting at the long table was a lot brighter than he was, although right now he felt as dim as a penny candle in any case. It was also clear that the king hadn’t slept for quite some time. He decided to go for honesty.
    “Can’t really answer that, sir,” he said, adopting a variant on his talking-to-Vetinari approach. “But…”
    “Yes?”
    “I’d wonder…you know, if I were a king…I’d wonder why people were happier living in squalor in Ankh-Morpork than staying back home…sir.”
    “Ah. You’re telling me how I should think, now?”
    “No, sir. Just how I think. But…there’s dwarf bars all over Ankh-Morpork, and they’ve got mining tools wired to the wall, and there’s dwarfs in ’em every night quaffing beer and singing sad songs about how they wish they were back in the mountains digging for gold. But if you said to them, fine, the gate’s open, off you go and send us a postcard, they’d say ‘Oh, well, yeah, I’d love to, but we’ve just got the new workshop finished…maybe next year we’ll go to Uberwald.’”
    “They come back to the mountains to die,” said the king.
    “They live in Ankh-Morpork.”
    “Why is this, do you think?”
    “I couldn’t say, sir. Because no one tells them how to, I suppose.”
    “And now you want our gold and iron,” said the king. “Is there nothing we can keep?”
    “Don’t know about that either, sir. I wasn’t trained for this job.”
    The king muttered something under his breath. Then, much louder, he said: “I can offer you no favors, Your Excellency. These are difficult times, see.”
    “But my real job is finding things out,” said Vimes, a little louder. “If there is anything that I could do to—”
    The king thrust the papers at Vimes.
    “Your letters of accreditation, Your Excellency. Their contents have been noted!”
    And that shuts me up, Vimes thought.
    “I would ask you one thing, though,” the king went on.
    “Yes, sir?”
    “ Really thirty men and a dog?”
    “No. There were only seven men. I killed one of them because I had to.”
    “How did the others die?”
    “Er…victims of circumstances, sir.”
    “Well, then…your secret is safe with me. Good morning, Miss Littlebottom.”
    Cheery looked stunned.
    The king gave her a brief smile.
    “Ah, the rights of the individual, a famous Ankh-Morpork invention, or so they say. But what rights are they, really, and whence do they come? Thank you, Dee, His Excellency was just leaving. You may send in the Copperhead delegation.”
    As Vimes was ushered out he saw another party of dwarfs assembled in the anteroom. One or two of them nodded at him as they were herded in.
    Dee turned back to Vimes.
    “I hope you didn’t tire his majesty.”
    “Someone else has already been doing that, by the look of it.”
    “These are sleepless times,” said the Ideas-taster.
    “Scone turned up yet?” said Vimes, innocently.
    “Your Excellency, if you persist in this attitude a complaint will go to your Lord Vetinari!”
    “He does so look forward to them. Was it this way out?”
    It was the last word said until Vimes and his guards were back in the coach and the doors to daylight were opening ahead of them.
    Out of the corner of his eye Vimes saw that Cheery was shaking.
    “Certainly hits you, doesn’t