The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett Page A

growled.
    “Vimes the thief-taker from Ankh-Morpork is going to be the alleged ambassador,” snapped the baroness.
    “Dwarfs?”
    “Of course they’ll be told.”
    The baron sat staring at nothing, with the same expression Detritus used when a new thought was being assembled.
    “Bad?” he ventured, at last.
    “Ruston, I’ve told you about this a thousand times!” said the baroness. “You’re spending far too much time Changed! You know what you’re like afterward. Supposing we had official visitors?”
    “Bite ’em!”
    “You see? Go on off to bed and don’t come down until you’re fit to be human!”
    “Vimes could ruin everything, Father,” said Wolfgang. He was now doing handstands, using one hand.
    “Ruston! Down! ”
    The baron stopped trying to scratch his ear with his leg.
    “Do?” he said.
    Wolfgang’s gleaming body dipped a moment as he changed hands again.
    “City life makes men weak. Vimes will be…fun. They do say he likes running, though.” He gave a little laugh. “We shall have to see how fast he is.”
    “His wife says he’s very softhearted— Ruston! Don’t you dare do that! If you going to do that sort of thing, do it upstairs! ”
    The baron looked only moderately ashamed, but readjusted his clothing anyway.
    “Bandits!” he said.
    “Yes, they could be a problem at this time of year,” said Wolfgang.
    “At least a dozen,” said the baroness. “Yes, that should—”
    Wolf grunted, upside down.
    “ No , mother. You are being stupid. His coach must get here safely. You understand? When he is here…that is a different matter.”
    The baron’s massive eyebrows tangled with a thought.
    “Plan! King!”
    “Exactly.”
    The baroness sighed. “I don’t trust that little dwarf.”
    Wolf somersaulted onto his feet.
    “No. But trustworthy or not, he’s all we’ve got. Vimes must get here, with his soft heart. He may even be useful. Perhaps we should…assist matters.”
    “Why?” snapped the baroness. “Let Ankh-Morpork look after their own!”

    There was a knock on the door while Vimes was having breakfast. Willikins ushered in a small thin man in neat but threadbare black clothes, whose overlarge head gave him the appearance of a lollypop nearing the last suck. He was carrying a black bowler hat like a soldier carries his helmet and walked like a man who had something wrong with his knees.
    “I am so sorry to disturb Your Grace…”
    Vimes laid down his knife. He’d been peeling an orange. Sybil insisted he eat fruit.
    “Not Your Grace,” he said. “Just Vimes. Sir Samuel if you must. Are you Vetinari’s man?”
    “Inigo Skimmer, sir. Mhm, mhm. I am to travel with you to Uberwald.”
    “Ah, you’re the clerk who’s going to do all the whispering and winking while I hand around the cucumber sandwiches, are you?”
    “I will try to be of service, sir, although I’m not much of a winker. Mhm, mhm.”
    “Would you like some breakfast?”
    “I ate already, sir. Mhm-mhm.”
    Vimes looked the clerk up and down. It wasn’t so much that his head was big, it was simply that someone appeared to have squeezed the bottom half of it and forced everything up into the top. He was going bald, too, and had carefully teased the remaining strands of hair across the pink dome. It was hard to tell his age. He could be twenty-five and a big worrier, or a fresh-faced forty. Vimes inclined to the former—the man had the look of someone who had spent his life watching the world over the top of a book. And there was that…well, was it a nervous laugh? A giggle? An unfortunate way of clearing his throat?
    And that strange way he walked…
    “Not even some toast? A piece of fruit? These oranges are fresh from Klatch, I really can recommend them…”
    Vimes tossed one at the man. It bounced off his arm, and Skimmer took a step backward, mildly appalled at the upper class’s habit of fruit hurling.
    “Are you all right, sir? Mhm-mhm?”
    “Sorry about that,” said Vimes.