The Fifth Elephant

really don’t drink at all, Sir Samuel?”
    “No.”
    “Not even vun?”
    “No,” said Vimes, more sharply. “You’d know that, if you knew anything about—”
    “Yet you keep half a bottle in your bottom drawer as a sort of permanent test,” said Lady Margolotta. “Now that, Sir Samuel, suggests a man who vears his hair shirts on the inside.”
    “I want to know who’s been saying all this!”
    Lady Margolotta sighed. Vimes got the impression that he’d failed another test. “I am rich, Sir Samuel. Vampires tend to be. Didn’t you know? Lord Vetinari, I know, believes that information is currency. But everyone knows that currency has alvays been information. Money doesn’t need to talk, it merely has to listen.”
    She stopped and sat watching Vimes, as if she’d suddenly decided to listen. Vimes moved uncomfortably under the steady gaze.
    “How is Havelock Vetinari?” she said.
    “The Patrician? Oh…fine.”
    “He must be quite old now.”
    “I’ve never really been certain how old he is,” said Vimes. “About my age, I suppose.”
    Then she stood up suddenly. “This has been an interesting meeting, Sir Samuel. I trust Lady Sybil is vell?”
    “Er…yes.”
    “Good. I am so glad. Ve vill meet again, I am sure. Igor vill see you out. My regards to the baron, vhen you see him. Pat him on the head for me.”
    “What the hell was that all about, Cheery?” said Vimes, as the coach set off down the hill again.
    “Which bit, sir?”
    “Practically all of it, really. Why should Ankh-Morpork dwarfs object if someone says they’re not dwarfs? They know they’re dwarfs.”
    “They won’t be subject to dwarf law, sir.”
    “I didn’t know they were.”
    “I mean…it’s like…how you live your life, sir. Marriages, burials…that sort of thing. Marriages won’t be legal. Old dwarfs won’t be allowed to be buried back home. And that’d be terrible. Every dwarf dreams of going back home when he’s old and starting up a little mine.”
    “Every dwarf? Even the ones who were born in Ankh-Morpork?”
    “Home can mean all sorts of things, sir,” said Cheery. “There’s other things, too. Contracts won’t be valid. Dwarfs like good solid rules, sir.”
    “We’ve got laws in Ankh-Morpork, too. More or less.”
    “Between themselves dwarfs prefer to use their own, sir.”
    “I bet the Copperhead dwarfs won’t like it if that happens.”
    “Yes, sir. There’ll be a split. And another war.” She sighed.
    “But why was she going on about drink?”
    “I don’t know, sir.”
    “I don’t like ’em. Never have, never will.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Did you see that rat?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “I think she was laughing at me.”
    The coach rolled through the streets of Bonk once more.
    “How big a war?”
    “Probably a worse one than the one fifty years ago, I expect,” said Cheery.
    “I don’t recall people talking about that one,” said Vimes.
    “Most humans didn’t know about it,” said Cheery. “It mostly took place underground. Under mining passages and digging invasion tunnels and so on. Perhaps a few houses fell into mysterious holes and people didn’t get their coal, but that was about it.”
    “You mean dwarfs just try to collapse mines on other dwarfs?”
    “Oh yes.”
    “I thought you were all law-abiding?”
    “Oh yes, sir. Very law-abiding. Just not very merciful.”
    Ye gods, thought Vimes, as the coach rolled over the bridge on the center of the town, I haven’t been sent to a coronation. I’ve been sent to a war that hasn’t started yet.
    He glanced up. Tantony was watching him intently, but looked away quickly.

    Lady Margolotta watched the coach until it reached the gates of the town. She stood back a little from the window. There was a slight overcast, but habits of preservation died hard.
    “What a very angry man, Igor.”
    “Yeth, mithtreth.”
    “You can see it piling up behind his patience. I vonder how far he can be pushed?”
    “I’ve brought the hearthe around, mithreth.”
    “Oh, is it that late? Ve had better be going, then. Everyone feels despondent if I miss a meeting, you know.”

    The castle on the other side of the valley was much more rugged than Lady Margolotta’s confectionery item. Even so, the gates were wide open and didn’t look as though they were often closed.
    The main door was tall and heavy-looking. The only thing that suggested it hadn’t been ordered for the standard castle catalog was the smaller, narrow