The Fifth Elephant (Discworld 24)

The King gave her a brief smile. "Ah, the rights of the individual, a famous Ankh-Morpork invention, or so they say. 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 it, the cold air after the warmth underground..." he ventured.

Cheery grinned in relief. "Yes, it does," she said.

"Seemed quite a decent sort," said Vimes. "What was that he muttered when I said I hadn"t been trained?"

"He said, "Who has?", sir."

"It sounded like it. All that arguing... it"s not a case of sitting on the throne and saying, "Do this, do that," then."

"Dwarfs are very argumentative, sir. Of course, many wouldn"t agree. But none of the big dwarf clans are happy about this. You know how it is the Copperheads didn"t want Albrecht, and the Schmaltzbergers wouldn"t support anyone called Glodson, the Ankh-Morpork dwarfs were split both ways, and Rhys comes from a little coalmining clan near Llamedos that isn"t important enough to be on anyone"s side..."

"You mean he didn"t get to be king because

everyone liked him but because no one disliked him enough?"

"That"s right, sir."

Vimes glanced at the crumpled letters that the King had thrust into his hand. By daylight he could see the faint scribble on one corner. There were just two words.

MIDNIGHT, SEE?

Humming to himself, he tore the piece of paper off and rolled it into a ball.

"And now for the damn vampire," he said.

"Don"t worry, sir," said Cheery. "What"s the worst she can do? Bite your head off?"

"Thank you for that, corporal. Tell me... those robes some of the dwarfs were wearing. I know they wear them on the surface so they"re not polluted by the nasty sunlight, but why wear . them down there?"

"It"s traditional, sir. Er, they were worn by the... well, it"s what you"d call the knockermen, sir."

"What did they do?"

"Well, you know about firedamp? It"s a gas you get in mines sometimes. It explodes."

Vimes saw the images in his mind as Cheery explained...

The miners would clear the area, if they were lucky. And the knockerman would go in wearing layer after layer of chain-mail and leather, carrying his sack of wicker globes stuffed with rags and oil. And his long pole. And his slingshot.