The Fifth Elephant (Discworld 24)

"Yes."

"You won"t stand a chance, milord. They do as they please."

"Then they"ve got to be stopped."

"You can"t. The old one understood the rules, but Wolfgang, he doesn"t obey anything!"

"All the more reason to stop him, then. Ah, Detritus." The troll saluted. "You"ve got your bow, I see. Treated you well, did they?"

"Dey called me a ficko troll," said Detritus darkly. "One of dem kicked me inna rocks."Was it this one?"

No.

"But he is their captain," said Vimes, stepping away from Tantony. "Sergeant, I order you: shoot him down."

In one movement the troll had the crossbow balanced on his shoulder and was sighting along the massive package of arrows. Tantony went pale.

"Well, go on," said Vimes. "It was an order, sergeant."

Detritus lowered the bow. "I ain"t dat fick, sir."

"I gave you an order!"

"Den you can do wid dat order what Boulder der Lintel did wid his bag of gravel, sir! Wid respect, o"course."

Vimes walked across and patted the shaking Tantony on his shoulder.

"Just making a point," he said.

"However," said Detritus, "if you can find der man dat kicked me inna rocks, I should be happy to give him a flick around der earhole. I know which one it was. He"s der one walkin" wid der limp."

Lady Sybil drank her wine carefully. It didn"t taste very nice. In fact, quite a lot of things weren"t very nice.

She wasn"t a good cook. She"d never been taught proper cookery; at her school it had always been assumed that other people would be doing the cooking and that in any case it would be for fifty people using at least four types of fork. Such dishes as she had mastered were dainty things on doilies.

But she cooked for Sam because she vaguely felt that a wife ought to and, besides, he was an eater who entirely matched her kitchen skills. He liked burnt sausages and fried eggs that went boing when you tried to stick a fork in them. If you gave him caviare, he"d want it in batter. He was an easy man to feed, if you always kept some lard in the house.

But the food here tasted as though it had been cooked by someone who had never even tried before. She"d seen the kitchens, when Serafine had given her the little tour, and they"d just about do for a cottage. The game larders, on the other hand, were the size of barns. She"d never seen so many dead things hanging up.

It was just that she was certain that venison shouldn"t be served boiled, with potatoes that were crunchy. If they were potatoes, of course. Potatoes weren"t usually grey. Even Sam, who liked the black lumpy bits you got in some mashed potatoes, would have commented. But Sybil had been brought up properly; if you can"t find something nice to say about the food, find something else to be nice about.

"These are... really very interesting plates," she said dutifully. "Er, are you sure there"s been no more news?" She tried to avoid watching the Baron. He was ignoring Sybil and his wife, and was prodding the meat around on his plate as if he"d forgotten what a knife and fork were for.

"Wolfgang and his friends are still out searching," said Serafine. "But this is terrible weather for a man to be on the run."

"He is not on the run!" snapped Sybil. "Sam is not guilty of anything!"

"Of course, of course. All the evidence is circumstantial. Of course," said the Baroness soothingly. "Now, I suggest that as soon as they have the passes clear, you and the, er, the staff get back to the safety of Ankh-Morpork before the real winter hits. We know the country, my dear. If your husband is alive, we can soon do something about it."

"I will not have him shamed like this! You saw him save the King!"

"I"m sure he did, Sybil. I"m afraid I was talking to my husband at the time, but I don"t disbelieve you for a minute. Is it true that he killed all those men in the Wilinus Pass?"

"What? But they were bandits!"

At the other end of the table the Baron had picked up a lump of meat and was trying to tear it apart with his teeth.

"Well, of course. Yes. Of course."