Sikes and his fellow drivers had parked their trailers outside of "The Imp
Arse", known by all professional travellers to be the best inn around on
this leg of the journey towards the Hublands. Admittedly, it helped that it
was the only inn in the vicinity, but even so it was generally agreed that
any competitors would be up against more than they could chew[1] if they
tried to take on the Imp Arse's owner and chef. "Carver" Boggis had studied
for years for Sham Harga at Harga's House of Ribs before setting up his own
establishment, and it hadn't taken long for word to get around.
Now there were always long rows of parked ox carts outside his inn, and the dimly lit dining hall was filled with heavyweight carters doing their best to put him out of business by means of his own Boggin's All-You-Can-Gobble- For-A-Dollar-Menu[2]. They were eating as if it was going out of fashion.
Sikes and C:o were seated along one of the long tables, all of them shovelling thick greyish stew down their hatches at an alarming speed, when all of a sudden there was an godsallmighty crash from outside, followed by frantic mooing. As one man, the drivers and guards got up and ran outside. The oxen were docile creatures, but a stampede was still a possibility, albeit one that no one liked to contemplate.
Horned beasts weighing in at around two thousand pounds each running amok was bad enough in itself, but when they were yoked to carts carrying all sorts of goods - including lamp oil, saltpetre and other chemicals from the mountains - there was no telling where it may all end up.
Sikes elbowed his way through the thong to where the company's carts were parked. What he saw gave him quite a shock. All five of them had crashed to the ground. That in itself wasn't very surprising, since every single wheel seemed to have come off at the same time, and was now lying next to the wagons in the mud.
Everyone stared at the mess, apart from the oxen, who stared back at the assembled group of people with the stupidly apologetic look of bovines everywhere. One of the animals had managed to wrestle free from its yoke and was happily ruminating its way along the roadside.
"That's one lucky ox," said a flabby-looking driver to Sikes' left.
"Nah, mate," retorted another, "One Lucky Ox works in the Curry Gardens back in Ankh-Morpork. He's one of them little guys who do the dishes there, innit?"
The other animals, seeing their more fortunate brother venture further and further away, stirred and mooed, causing the drivers to forget their differences of opinion for now, as they all went to work trying to restore some semblance of order.
In the divers alarum that ensued, no one noticed the rustling in the leaves that went in a straight line towards Ankh-Morpork. Soon that, too, disappeared through the wilted cabbage fields.
-----
"Ugrk," said the gatekeeper, displaying an uncanny insight into either dwarfish literature or his own family tree. Of course, it could also have been a direct reaction to Detritus' cobble-like fist enclosing the troll's throat, such as it were. Cheery looked up at him as he dangled several inches off the ground.
"My colleague will accompany you until I get back," she said, and then added, as an afterthought "Do try not to upset him. He has quite a temper on him if provoked."
The livery-clad cave troll stared at her from his precarious position, fighting to breathe through his cramped-up windpipe. What did der dwarf mean, if provoked?
-----
Vimes strolled across Pseudopolis Yard at a leisurely pace. Having put Slant in his place gave him a warm glow inside, however brief, and he felt his own personal storm clouds disappear while the real ones gathered in the skies above. As he passed the opera house, the wind started howling with renewed gusto.
Well, at least it drowns out the sounds of repetitions from inside the building, Vimes thought to himself. He had been introduced to opera late in life, and didn't have much appreciation for it. But Sybil was an avid fan and had two seats reserved for every performance, and every now and then he couldn't wriggle out of it. As far as he was concerned, the main reasons why people clapped their hands at the end of a show must be that they were well sloshed after the intermission and simply happy that it was over and that they had survived[3].
The wind had driven away even the beggars who normally hung out there, but as he walked past the stairs leading up to the front doors he noticed a kid who sat propped up against the wall with a faraway look in his eyes.
The boy couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old, and he was clearly lagging several meals behind schedule. He was wearing something that may have been clothes at some point in time or another, but it was hard to tell. Now it seemed to consist mainly of lumps of cloth held together by inexpertly applied pieces of string.
Strange, he thought. Normally a kid like that would have been recruited to either the Skats or the Mohocks by now, but he couldn't see any gang insignia on the boy. Then he noticed something else. Next to the youngster stood a flowerpot, and what was strange about it was this: even though the wind was quite strong at the moment, the scraggly plant seemed to move as if for a gentle breeze.
At a glance Vimes thought it looked a bit like a starved rose, but on closer inspection the flowers were rather strange. It was a ferocious- looking thing, its crown petals seemingly a lot sharper than most carnivores' teeth.
Vimes paused. Oh, hells. Anyone with enough smarts to survive on the streets without being engulfed by the gangs deserved a hand up.
"Hey kid!" he called. "Want to earn a dollar?"
The boy looked up with a glint in his eye that said more than a thousand words.
"Get over to that side of the square, and when you see a man come out of the alley behind the watch station you follow him to wherever his going."
"OK. What's he look like, then?"
" Don't worry, you'll know it's him when you see him", Vimes said. "Just make sure you find out where he goes and then come back here and tell whoever is at the reception desk in the watch house and they'll give you a dollar."
"You got it!" The boy stood up, grabbed his pot with the weird-looking plant and made across the square.
Vimes watched him go with something like a smile on his face. That was pretty much the way he'd started out himself, a long, long time ago.
-----
Cheery put her axe back in its sling and walked up towards the main building, an imposing mansion in the old fashioned style. She reached the broad steps leading up to the enormous double-doors and paused there for a second. You heard stories about these people, after all, and now she was about to find out if they were true.
Then she resolutely swallowed the last of her rat snack and walked up and rapped her knuckles on the mature oak frame. The door was opened, and a man that had the word 'butler' written all over him as clearly as if it had been graffiti and he a New York metro station appeared.
"Yes?" he said in a modulated tone of voice.
Unfortunately for Cheery, the metaphorical gangs at large in this particular butler's underground had also seen fit to add another tag to the walls of his frame, and that word was 'vampire'. Cheery felt sure that if this creature had ever come across a black ribbon it was only because it would have used it as a tourniquet on its victims for the sake of etiquette[4]. The vampire butler gave her a smile to rival even Angua's, and waited for her to state her errand or, more likely, turn on her heel and flee for her life.
Instead, Cheery licked her fingers clean from the last of the rat sauce and looked the vampire in the eyes. It was time to put that little theory of hers to the test.
"You know," she said, "Gimlet's Dwarf delicatessen in Cable Street does the meanest Rat รก la Gogol you'll find just about anywhere, but this one wasn't bad either. Not bad at all."
The vampire made a sound best described as "gahk!" and staggered backwards into the hallway, away from Cheery, who followed him carelessly, talking continually as she did.
"A breath of fresh air, you might say," she mused. "You'd be wrong, of course, but I can see that you realise this already."
Gagging now, the butler looked as if he was trying to disappear inside himself, crouching in a corner of the entrance.
"Most eateries don't do them properly, but this one - mm-mm!" Cheery licked her lips appreciatively. "I reckon there must've been enough garlic in that sauce to wipe out a medium-sized town in Uberwald. What do you think?"
The vampire was nothing but a quivering heap now. Cheery leaned forward, drawing level with the butler, letting him feel the full blast of her breath.
"I'm sure you understand that there's a lot at stake here," she said," And I'm equally sure that you wouldn't want to interfere with police business, so I'll just see myself in, shall I?"
----------------------- [1] As it were. [2] Unlike most other members of the Boggis family, "Carver" had decided against becoming a thief. The competition wasn't as fierce in the inn keeping business, and there was no Guild looking over your shoulder to see that you went about things in the correct manner when you robbed your customers blind. [3] Much like charter tourists upon landing, in fact. [4] Of late, some vampires in Ankh-Morpork have begun refraining from their traditional fare in order to become more accepted by the other species. They wear a black ribbon to distinguish themselves from their less enlightened brethren.
Now there were always long rows of parked ox carts outside his inn, and the dimly lit dining hall was filled with heavyweight carters doing their best to put him out of business by means of his own Boggin's All-You-Can-Gobble- For-A-Dollar-Menu[2]. They were eating as if it was going out of fashion.
Sikes and C:o were seated along one of the long tables, all of them shovelling thick greyish stew down their hatches at an alarming speed, when all of a sudden there was an godsallmighty crash from outside, followed by frantic mooing. As one man, the drivers and guards got up and ran outside. The oxen were docile creatures, but a stampede was still a possibility, albeit one that no one liked to contemplate.
Horned beasts weighing in at around two thousand pounds each running amok was bad enough in itself, but when they were yoked to carts carrying all sorts of goods - including lamp oil, saltpetre and other chemicals from the mountains - there was no telling where it may all end up.
Sikes elbowed his way through the thong to where the company's carts were parked. What he saw gave him quite a shock. All five of them had crashed to the ground. That in itself wasn't very surprising, since every single wheel seemed to have come off at the same time, and was now lying next to the wagons in the mud.
Everyone stared at the mess, apart from the oxen, who stared back at the assembled group of people with the stupidly apologetic look of bovines everywhere. One of the animals had managed to wrestle free from its yoke and was happily ruminating its way along the roadside.
"That's one lucky ox," said a flabby-looking driver to Sikes' left.
"Nah, mate," retorted another, "One Lucky Ox works in the Curry Gardens back in Ankh-Morpork. He's one of them little guys who do the dishes there, innit?"
The other animals, seeing their more fortunate brother venture further and further away, stirred and mooed, causing the drivers to forget their differences of opinion for now, as they all went to work trying to restore some semblance of order.
In the divers alarum that ensued, no one noticed the rustling in the leaves that went in a straight line towards Ankh-Morpork. Soon that, too, disappeared through the wilted cabbage fields.
-----
"Ugrk," said the gatekeeper, displaying an uncanny insight into either dwarfish literature or his own family tree. Of course, it could also have been a direct reaction to Detritus' cobble-like fist enclosing the troll's throat, such as it were. Cheery looked up at him as he dangled several inches off the ground.
"My colleague will accompany you until I get back," she said, and then added, as an afterthought "Do try not to upset him. He has quite a temper on him if provoked."
The livery-clad cave troll stared at her from his precarious position, fighting to breathe through his cramped-up windpipe. What did der dwarf mean, if provoked?
-----
Vimes strolled across Pseudopolis Yard at a leisurely pace. Having put Slant in his place gave him a warm glow inside, however brief, and he felt his own personal storm clouds disappear while the real ones gathered in the skies above. As he passed the opera house, the wind started howling with renewed gusto.
Well, at least it drowns out the sounds of repetitions from inside the building, Vimes thought to himself. He had been introduced to opera late in life, and didn't have much appreciation for it. But Sybil was an avid fan and had two seats reserved for every performance, and every now and then he couldn't wriggle out of it. As far as he was concerned, the main reasons why people clapped their hands at the end of a show must be that they were well sloshed after the intermission and simply happy that it was over and that they had survived[3].
The wind had driven away even the beggars who normally hung out there, but as he walked past the stairs leading up to the front doors he noticed a kid who sat propped up against the wall with a faraway look in his eyes.
The boy couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old, and he was clearly lagging several meals behind schedule. He was wearing something that may have been clothes at some point in time or another, but it was hard to tell. Now it seemed to consist mainly of lumps of cloth held together by inexpertly applied pieces of string.
Strange, he thought. Normally a kid like that would have been recruited to either the Skats or the Mohocks by now, but he couldn't see any gang insignia on the boy. Then he noticed something else. Next to the youngster stood a flowerpot, and what was strange about it was this: even though the wind was quite strong at the moment, the scraggly plant seemed to move as if for a gentle breeze.
At a glance Vimes thought it looked a bit like a starved rose, but on closer inspection the flowers were rather strange. It was a ferocious- looking thing, its crown petals seemingly a lot sharper than most carnivores' teeth.
Vimes paused. Oh, hells. Anyone with enough smarts to survive on the streets without being engulfed by the gangs deserved a hand up.
"Hey kid!" he called. "Want to earn a dollar?"
The boy looked up with a glint in his eye that said more than a thousand words.
"Get over to that side of the square, and when you see a man come out of the alley behind the watch station you follow him to wherever his going."
"OK. What's he look like, then?"
" Don't worry, you'll know it's him when you see him", Vimes said. "Just make sure you find out where he goes and then come back here and tell whoever is at the reception desk in the watch house and they'll give you a dollar."
"You got it!" The boy stood up, grabbed his pot with the weird-looking plant and made across the square.
Vimes watched him go with something like a smile on his face. That was pretty much the way he'd started out himself, a long, long time ago.
-----
Cheery put her axe back in its sling and walked up towards the main building, an imposing mansion in the old fashioned style. She reached the broad steps leading up to the enormous double-doors and paused there for a second. You heard stories about these people, after all, and now she was about to find out if they were true.
Then she resolutely swallowed the last of her rat snack and walked up and rapped her knuckles on the mature oak frame. The door was opened, and a man that had the word 'butler' written all over him as clearly as if it had been graffiti and he a New York metro station appeared.
"Yes?" he said in a modulated tone of voice.
Unfortunately for Cheery, the metaphorical gangs at large in this particular butler's underground had also seen fit to add another tag to the walls of his frame, and that word was 'vampire'. Cheery felt sure that if this creature had ever come across a black ribbon it was only because it would have used it as a tourniquet on its victims for the sake of etiquette[4]. The vampire butler gave her a smile to rival even Angua's, and waited for her to state her errand or, more likely, turn on her heel and flee for her life.
Instead, Cheery licked her fingers clean from the last of the rat sauce and looked the vampire in the eyes. It was time to put that little theory of hers to the test.
"You know," she said, "Gimlet's Dwarf delicatessen in Cable Street does the meanest Rat รก la Gogol you'll find just about anywhere, but this one wasn't bad either. Not bad at all."
The vampire made a sound best described as "gahk!" and staggered backwards into the hallway, away from Cheery, who followed him carelessly, talking continually as she did.
"A breath of fresh air, you might say," she mused. "You'd be wrong, of course, but I can see that you realise this already."
Gagging now, the butler looked as if he was trying to disappear inside himself, crouching in a corner of the entrance.
"Most eateries don't do them properly, but this one - mm-mm!" Cheery licked her lips appreciatively. "I reckon there must've been enough garlic in that sauce to wipe out a medium-sized town in Uberwald. What do you think?"
The vampire was nothing but a quivering heap now. Cheery leaned forward, drawing level with the butler, letting him feel the full blast of her breath.
"I'm sure you understand that there's a lot at stake here," she said," And I'm equally sure that you wouldn't want to interfere with police business, so I'll just see myself in, shall I?"
----------------------- [1] As it were. [2] Unlike most other members of the Boggis family, "Carver" had decided against becoming a thief. The competition wasn't as fierce in the inn keeping business, and there was no Guild looking over your shoulder to see that you went about things in the correct manner when you robbed your customers blind. [3] Much like charter tourists upon landing, in fact. [4] Of late, some vampires in Ankh-Morpork have begun refraining from their traditional fare in order to become more accepted by the other species. They wear a black ribbon to distinguish themselves from their less enlightened brethren.