Gaspode shifted uneasily. "Arsehole," he said.
"Oh." To the dog"s frank astonishment, Carrot blushed.
"That"s basic"ly a summary, but it"s a pretty good translation," he said. "I wouldn"t have mentioned it, but you did ask..."
Gaspode stopped and whined for a moment, trying to convey the message that he was losing his voice due to lack of chicken.
"Er, there"s been a lot on the howl about Angua," he went on, when Carrot seemed unable to take the hint. "Er, they think she"s bad news."
"Why? She"s travelling as a wolf, after all."
"Wolves hate werewolves."
"What? That can"t be right! When she"s wolf-shaped she"s just like a wolf!"
"So? When she"s human-shaped she"s just like a human. And what"s that got to do with anything? Humans don"t like werewolves. Wolves don"t like werewolves. People don"t like wolves that can think like people, an" people don"t like people who can act like wolves. Which just shows you that people are the same everywhere," said Gaspode. He assessed this sentence and added, "Even when they"re wolves."
"I never thought of it like that."
"And she smells wrong. Wolves are very sensitive to that sort of thing."
"Tell me more about the howl."
"Oh, it"s like the clacky thing. News gets spread for hundreds of miles."
"Do the howls... mention her... companion?"
"No, If you like, I"ll ask Ars - "
"I"d prefer a different name, if it"s all the same to you," said Carrot. "Words like that aren"t clever."
Gaspode rolled his eyes. "There"s nothing wrong with the word among us pedestically gifted species," he said. "We"re very smelloriented." He sighed. "How about "bum"? In the sense of, er, migratory worker? He"s a freelance chicken-throttler, style of fing?"
He turned to the wolf and spoke in canine. "Now then, Bum, this human is insane and believe me I know a mad human when I see one. He"s frothing at the mouth inside and he"ll rip your hide off and nail it to a tree if you aren"t straight with us, understand?"
"What was that you just told him?" said Carrot.
"Just explainin" we"re friends," said Gaspode. To the cowering wolf he barked: "Okay, he"s prob"ly going to do that anyway, but I can talk to him, so your only chance is to tell us everything - "
"Know nothing!" the wolf whined. "She was with a big he-wolf from Uberwald! From the Clan That Smells Like This!"
Gaspode sniffed. "He"s a long way from home, then."
"He"s a bad news wolf!"
"Tell it there"ll be roast chicken for its trouble," said Carrot.
Gaspode sighed. It was a hard life being an interpreter.
"All right," he growled. "I"ll persuade him to untie you. It"ll take some doing, mark you. If he offers you a chicken, don"t take it "cos it"ll be poisoned. Humans, eh?"
Carrot watched the wolf flee.
"Odd," he said. "You"ve have thought it"d be hungry, wouldn"t you?"
Gaspode looked up from the roast chicken. "Wolves, eh?" he said, indistinctly.
That night, when they heard the wolves howling in the distand mountains, Gaspode picked up one solitary, lonely howl behind them.