The Fifth Elephant (Discworld 24)

"You get more than your fair share of night watches as it is; anyway."

Colonesque"s jaw dropped. Whoever was standing in the shadows was clearly reading his mind.

"Good man. You just stand here, then, and make sure no one steals the gate."

Colonesque took care to continue to stare straight ahead. He heard the thud and creak of the gate being opened and closed.

It occurred to him that the speaker had not in fact mentioned what the other way was, and he was quite relieved about that.

"What was the other way?" said Vimes as they hurried through the snow.

"We"d go and look for another way in," said Angua.

There were few people on the streets, which were whitening with the new snow again except where wisps of steam escaped from the occasional grating. In Uberwald, it seemed, sunset made its own curfew. This was just as well, because Gavin was growling continuously under his breath.

Carrot came back from the next corner.

"There"s dwarfs on guard all round the embassy," he said. "They don"t look open to negotiation, sir."

Vimes looked down. They were standing on a grating.

Captain Tantony of the Bonk Watch was not happy with this duty. He"d been at the opera last night, and later on he"d thought he saw things happening in a way which, the burgomaster had instructed him, hadn"t happened. Of course, the thing to do was obey orders. You were safe if you obeyed orders. Everyone in the watch knew that. But these didn"t feel like safe orders.

He"d heard they did things differently in Ankh-Morpork. Milord Vimes would arrest anyone, they said.

Tantony had set up a desk in the embassy"s hall so that he could keep an eye on the main doors. He"d taken some pains to position his men around the inside of the building; he didn"t trust the dwarfs on guard outside. They"d said they"d got orders to kill Vimes on sight, and that didn"t make any sense. There had to be some sort of a trial, didn"t there?

There was a faint noise from upstairs. He stood up carefully and reached for his crossbow. "Corporal Svetlz?"

There was another little sound. Tantony went to the bottom of the stairs.

Vimes appeared at the top of them. There was blood on his shirt, and crusted on the side of his face. To the captain"s horror he began to walk down the steps.

"I will shoot you!"

"That"s the order, is it?" said Vimes.

"Yes! Stop there!"

"But if I"m going to be shot anyway there"s no point in stopping, is there?" said Vimes. "I don"t think you"re the kind to do that, captain. You"ve got a brain." Vimes steadied himself on the banister rail. "Shouldn"t you have called for the rest of the guards by now, by the way?"

"I tell you to stop!"

"You know who I am. If you"re going to fire that damn thing, do it now. But first, I suggest it would be a really good career move to tug the bellpull over there. What"s the worst that would happen? You"ve still got the bow pointed at me. There"s something you really ought to know."

Tantony gave him a suspicious look but took a few steps sideways and tugged the rope.

Igor stepped out from behind a pillar. "Yeth, marthter?"

"Tell this young man where he is, will you?"

"He"th in Ankh-Morpork, marthter," said Igor calmly.

"See?" said Vimes. "And don"t glare at Igor like that. I missed it when he welcomed me here, but it"s true. This is an embassy, my son," he went on, walking forwards again, "and that means it"s officially on the soil of the home country. Welcome to Ankh-Morpork. There"s thousands of Uberwald people living in our city. You don"t want to go starting a war, do you?"

"But... but... they said... my orders... you are a criminal!"

"The word is accused, captain. We don"t kill people in Ankh-Morpork just because they"re accused. Well, not on purpose. And not because someone tells us to."