Feet of Clay (11 page)

Cheery stared at Angua, who returned the stare blankly while mumbling, ‘Well, dwarfish is difficult if you haven’t eaten gravel all your life …’

Cheery was still staring. ‘Er … thank you,’ he managed. ‘Er … I’d better go and tidy up.’

‘What about Lord Vetinari?’ said Carrot.

‘I’m putting my best man on that,’ said Vimes. ‘Trustworthy, reliable, knows the ins and outs of this place like the back of his hand.
I’m
handling it, in other words.’

Carrot’s hopeful expression faded to hurt puzzlement. ‘Don’t you want me to?’ he said. ‘I could—’

‘No. Indulge an old man. I want you to go back to the Watch House and take care of things.’

‘What things?’

‘Everything! Rise to the occasion. Move paper around. There’s that new shift rota to draw up. Shout at people! Read reports!’

Carrot saluted. ‘Yes, Commander Vimes.’

‘Good. Off you go, then.’

And if anything happens to Vetinari
, Vimes added to himself as the dejected Carrot went out,
no one will be able to say you were anywhere near him
.

The little grille in the gate of the Royal College of Arms snapped open, to the distant accompaniment of brayings and grunts. ‘Yes?’ said a voice, ‘what dost
thee
want?’

‘I’m Corporal Nobbs,’ said Nobby.

An eye applied itself to the grille. It took in the full, dreadful extent of the godly handiwork that was Corporal Nobbs.

‘Are you the baboon? We’ve had one on order for …’

‘No. I’ve come about some coat with arms,’ said Nobby.

‘You?’ said the voice. The owner of the voice made it very clear that he was aware there were degrees of nobility from something above kingship stretching all the way down to commoner, and that as far as Corporal Nobbs was concerned an entirely new category – commonest, perhaps – would have to be coined.

‘I’ve been told,’ said Nobby, miserably. ‘It’s about this ring I got.’

‘Go round the back door,’ said the voice.

Cheery was tidying away the makeshift equipment he’d set up in the privy when a sound made him look around. Angua was leaning against the doorway.

‘What do you want?’ he demanded.

‘Nothing. I just thought I’d say: don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’

‘I think you’re lying.’

Cheery dropped a test tube, and sagged on to a seat. ‘How could you tell?’ he said. ‘Even other
dwarfs
can’t tell! I’ve been so careful!’

‘Shall we just say … I have special talents?’ said Angua.

Cheery started to clean a beaker distractedly.

‘I don’t know why you’re so upset,’ said Angua. ‘I thought dwarfs hardly recognized the difference between male and female, anyway. Half the dwarfs
we
bring in here on a No. 23 are female, I know that, and they’re the ones that are hardest to subdue …’

‘What’s a No. 23?’

‘“Running Screaming at People While Drunk and Trying to Cut Their Knees off”,’ said Angua. ‘It’s easier to give them numbers than write it down every time. Look, there’s plenty of women in this town that’d love to do things the dwarf way. I mean, what’re the choices they’ve got? Barmaid, seamstress or someone’s wife. While
you
can do anything the men do …’

‘Provided we do only what the men do,’ said Cheery.

Angua paused. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I
see
. Hah. Yes. I know
that
tune.’

‘I can’t hold an axe!’ said Cheery. ‘I’m scared of fights! I think songs about gold are stupid! I hate beer! I can’t even drink dwarfishly! When I try to quaff I drown the dwarf behind me!’

‘I can see that could be tricky,’ said Angua.

‘I saw a girl walk down the street here and some men
whistled
after her! And you can wear
dresses
! With
colours
!’

‘Oh, dear.’ Angua tried not to smile. ‘How long have lady dwarfs felt like this? I thought they were happy with the way things are …’

‘Oh, it’s easy to be happy when you don’t know any different,’ said Cheery bitterly. ‘Chainmail trousers are fine if you’ve never heard of lingerry!’

‘Li— oh, yes,’ said Angua. ‘Lingerie. Yes.’ She tried to feel sympathetic and found that she was, really, but she did have to stop herself from saying
that
at least
you
don’t have to find styles that can easily be undone by paws.

‘I thought I could come here and get a different kind of job,’ Cheery moaned. ‘I’m good at needlework and I went to see the Guild of Seamstresses and—’ She stopped, and blushed behind her beard.

‘Yes,’ said Angua. ‘Lots of people make that mistake.’ She stood up straight and brushed herself off. ‘You’ve impressed Commander Vimes, anyway. I think you’ll like it here. Everyone’s got troubles in the Watch. Normal people don’t become policemen. You’ll get on fine.’

‘Commander Vimes is a bit …’ Cheery began.

‘He’s okay when he’s in a good mood. He needs to drink but he doesn’t dare to these days. You know: one drink is too many, two is not enough … And that makes him edgy. When he’s in a bad mood he’ll tread on your toes and then shout at you for not standing up straight.’

‘
You’re
normal,’ said Cheery, shyly. ‘I like
you
.’

Angua patted her on the head. ‘You say that now,’ she said, ‘but when you’ve been around here for a while you’ll find out that sometimes I can be a bitch … What’s that?’

‘What?’

‘That … painting. With the eyes …’

‘Or two points of red light,’ said Cheery.

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘It’s the last thing Father Tubelcek saw, I think,’ said the dwarf.

Angua stared at the black rectangle. She sniffed. ‘There it is again!’

Cheery took a step backwards. ‘What? What?’

‘Where’s that smell coming from?’ Angua demanded.

‘Not me!’ said Cheery hurriedly.

Angua grabbed a small dish from the bench and sniffed at it. ‘This is it! I smelled this at the museum! What is it?’

‘It’s just clay. It was on the floor in the room where the old priest was killed,’ said Cheery. ‘Probably it came off someone’s boot.’

Angua crumbled some of it between her fingers.

‘I think it’s just potters’ clay,’ said Cheery. We used to use it at the guild. For making pots,’ she added, just in case Angua hadn’t grasped things. ‘You know? Crucibles and things. This looks like someone tried baking it but didn’t get the heat right. See how it crumbles?’

‘Pottery,’ said Angua. ‘I know a potter …’

She glanced down at the dwarf’s iconograph again.

Please, no, she thought. Not one of
them
?

The front gate of the College of Arms –
both
front gates – were swung open. The two Heralds bobbed excitedly around Corporal Nobbs as he tottered out.

‘Has your lordship got everything he requires?’

‘Nfff,’ said Nobby.

‘If we can be of any help whatsoever—’

‘Nnnf.’

‘Any help at all—?’

‘Nnnf.’

‘Sorry about your boots, m’lord, but the wyvern’s been ill. It’ll brush off no trouble when it dries.’

Nobby tottered off along the lane.

‘He even walks nobly, wouldn’t you say?’

‘More … nobbly than nobly, I think.’

‘It’s disgusting that he’s a mere corporal, a man of his breeding.’

Igneous the troll backed away until he was up against his potter’s wheel.

‘I never done it,’ he said.

‘Done what?’ said Angua.

Igneous hesitated.

Igneous was huge and … well, rocky. He moved around the streets of Ankh-Morpork like a small iceberg and, like an iceberg, there was more to him than immediately met the eye. He was known as a supplier of things. More or less any kind of things. And he was also a wall, which was the same as a fence only a lot harder and tougher to beat. Igneous never asked unnecessary questions, because he couldn’t think of any.

‘Nuffin,’ he said, finally. Igneous had always found the general denial was more reliable than the specific refutation.

‘Glad to hear it,’ said Angua. ‘Now … where do you get your clay from?’

Igneous’s face crinkled as he tried to work out where this line of questioning could possibly go. ‘I got re-seats,’ he said. ‘Every bit prop’ly paid for.’

Angua nodded. It was probably true. Igneous, despite giving the appearance of not being able to count beyond ten without ripping off someone else’s arm, and having an intimate involvement in the city’s complex hierarchy of crime, was known to pay his bills. If you were going to be successful in the criminal world, you needed a reputation for honesty.

‘Have you seen any like this before?’ she said, holding out the sample.

‘It
clay
,’ said Igneous, relaxing a little. ‘I see clay all der time. It don’t have no serial number. Clay’s clay. Got lumps of it out der back. You make bricks an pots and stuff outa it. Dere’s loads of potters in dis town and we all got der stuff. Why you wanna know about clay?’

‘Can’t you tell where it came from?’

Igneous took the tiny piece, sniffed it, and rolled it between his fingers.

‘Dis is crank,’ he said, looking a lot happier now that the conversation was veering away from more personal concerns. ‘Dat’s like … crappy clay, jus’ good enough for dem lady potters wi’ dangly earrings wot make coffee mugs wot you can’t lift wid both hands.’ He rolled it again. ‘Also, it got a lotta grog in it. Dat’s bitsa old pots, all smashed up real small. Makes it stronger. Any potter got loadsa stuff like dis.’ He rubbed it again. ‘Dis has been sorta heated up but it ain’t prop’ly baked.’

‘But you can’t say
where
it came from?’

‘Outa der ground is der best I can do, lady,’ said Igneous. He relaxed a little now it appeared that
enquiries
were not to do with such matters as a recent batch of hollow statues and subjects of a similar nature. As sometimes happened in these circumstances, he tried to be helpful. ‘Come an’ have a look at dis.’

He loped away. The Watchmen followed him through the warehouse, observed by a couple of dozen cautious trolls. No one liked to see policemen up close, especially if the reason you were working at Igneous’s place was that it was nice and quiet and you wanted somewhere to lie low for a few weeks. Besides, while it was true that a lot of people came to Ankh-Morpork because it was a city of opportunity, sometimes it was the opportunity not to be hung, skewered or dismantled for whatever crimes you’d left behind in the mountains.

‘Just don’t look,’ said Angua.

‘Why?’ said Cheery.

‘Because there’s just us and there’s at least two dozen of them,’ said Angua. ‘And all our clothes were made for people with full sets of arms and legs.’

Igneous went through a doorway and out into the yard behind the factory. Pots were stacked high on pallets. Bricks were curing in long rows. And under a crude roof were several large mounds of clay.

‘Dere,’ said Igneous generously. ‘Clay.’

‘Is there a special name for it when it’s piled up like that?’ said Cheery timorously. She prodded the stuff.

‘Yeah,’ said Igneous. ‘Dat’s technic’ly wot we calls a
heap
.’

Angua shook her head sadly. So much for Clues.
Clay
was clay. She’d hoped there were all different sorts, and it turned out to be as common as dirt.

And then Igneous Helped the Police with Their Enquiries. ‘D’you mind if youse goes out the back way?’ he mumbled. ‘Youse makes the help nervous an’ I get pots I can’t sell.’

He indicated a pair of wide doors in the rear wall, big enough for a cart to get through. Then he fumbled in his apron and produced a large keyring.

The padlock on the gate was big and shiny and new.

‘
You
are afraid of
theft
?’ said Angua.

‘Now, lady, dat’s unfair,’ said Igneous. ‘Someone broke der ole lock when dey pinched some stuff tree, four munfs ago.’

‘Disgusting, isn’t it?’ said Angua. ‘Makes you wonder why you pay your taxes, I expect.’

In some ways Igneous was a
lot
brighter than, say, Mr Ironcrust. He ignored the remark. ‘It was just stuff,’ he said, ushering them towards the open gate as speedily as he dared.

‘Was it clay they stole?’ said Cheery.

‘It don’t cost much but it’s the principle of the t’ing,’ he said. ‘It beat me why dey bothered. It come to somet’ng when half a ton of clay can jus’ walk out the door.’

Angua looked at the lock again. ‘Yes, indeed,’ she said distantly.

The gate rattled shut behind them. They were outside, in an alley.

‘Fancy anyone stealing a load of clay,’ said Cheery. ‘Did he tell the Watch?’

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Angua. ‘Wasps don’t complain too loudly when they’re stung. Anyway, Detritus thinks Igneous is mixed up with smuggling Slab to the mountains, and so he’s itching for an excuse to have a poke around in there … Look, this is still technically my day off.’ She stepped back and peered up at the high spiked wall around the yard. ‘Could you bake clay in a baker’s oven?’ she said.

‘Oh, no.’

‘Doesn’t get hot enough?’

‘No, it’s the wrong shape. Some of your pots’d be baked hard while others’d still be green. Why do you ask?’

Why
did
I ask? Angua thought. Oh, what the hell … ‘Fancy a drink?’

‘Not ale,’ said Cheery quickly. ‘And nowhere where you have to sing while you drink. Or slap your knees.’

Angua nodded understandingly. ‘Somewhere, in fact, without dwarfs?’

‘Er … yes …’

‘Where
we’re
going,’ said Angua, ‘that won’t be a problem.’

The fog was rising fast. All morning it had hung around in alleys and cellars. Now it was moving back in for the night. It came out of the ground and up from the river and down from the sky, a clinging yellowish stinging blanket, the river Ankh in droplet form. It found its way through cracks and,
against
all common sense, managed to survive in lighted rooms, filling the air with an eye-watering haze and making the candles crackle. Outdoors, every figure loomed, every shape was a menace …

In a drab alley off a drab street Angua stopped, squared her shoulders, and pushed open a door.