“Politicians do that—” Vimes began.
“Not the way he does, believe me. I expect Lord Vetinari remembers facts about people—”
“Oh, you'd better believe that!”
“—but Carrot takes an interest. He doesn't even think about it. He makes space in his head for people. He takes an interest, and so people think they're interesting. They feel… better when he's around.”
Vimes glanced down. Her fingers were drawing aimlessly in the sand again. We're all changing in the desert, he thought. It's not like the city, hemming your thoughts in. You can feel your mind expand to the horizons. No wonder this is where religions start. And suddenly here I am, probably not legally, just trying to do my job. Why? Because I'm too damn stupid to stop and think before I give chase, that's why. Even Carrot knew better than to do that. I'd have just chased after Ahmed's ship without a thought, but he was bright enough to report back to me first. He did what a responsible officer ought to do, but me…
“Vetinari's terrier,” he said aloud. “Chase first, and think about it afterwards—”
His eye caught the distant bulk of Gebra. Out there was a Klatchian army, and somewhere over there was the Ankh-Morpork army, and he was a handful of people and no plan because he'd chased first and—
“But I had to,” he said. “Any copper wouldn't have let a suspect like Ahmed get—”
Once again he had the feeling that the problem he was facing wasn't really a problem at all. It was something very obvious. He was the problem. He wasn't thinking right.
Come to think of it, he hadn't really thought at all.
He glanced down again at the trapped company. They had stripped down to their loincloths and were looking very sheepish, as men generally do in their underwear.
Carrot's white robe still flapped in the breeze. He hasn't been here a day, thought Vimes, and already he's wearing the desert like a pair of sandals.
“…er… bingeley-bingeley beep?”
“Is that your demon diary?” said Angua.
Vimes rolled his eyes. “Yes. Although it seems to be talking about someone else.”
“…er… three pee em,” the demon muttered slowly, “…day not filled in… Check Wall Defences…”
“See? It thinks I'm in Ankh-Morpork! It cost Sybil three hundred dollars and it can't even keep track of where I am.”
He flicked his cigar butt away and stood up.
“I'd better get down there,” he said. “After all, I am the boss.”
He slithered his way down the dune and strolled towards Carrot, who salaamed to him.
“A salute would do, captain, thanks all the same.”
“Sorry, sir. I think I got a bit carried away.”
“Why've you made them strip off?”
“Makes them a bit of a laughing stock when they return, sir. A blow to their pride.” He leaned closer and whispered, “I've let their commander keep his clothes on, though. It doesn't do to show up the officers.”
“Really?” said Vimes.
“And some want to join us, sir. There's Goriffs lad and a few others. They were just dragooned into the army yesterday. They don't even know why they're fighting. So I said they could.”
Vimes took the captain aside. “Er… I don't remember suggesting that any of the prisoners joined us,” he said quietly.
“Well, sir… I thought, what with our army approaching, and since quite a lot of these lads are from various corners of the empire and don't like the Klatchians any more than we do, I thought that a flying column of guerrilla fighters—”{79}
“We aren't soldiers!”
“Er, I thought we were soldiers—”
“Yes, yes, all right. In a way… but really we're coppers, like we've always been. We don't kill people unless—”
Ahmed? Everyone's slightly on edge when he's around, he worries people, he gets information from all over the place, he seems to go where he pleases, and he's always around when there's trouble— Damn damn damn…
He ran through the crowd until he reached Jabbar, who was watching Carrot with the usual puzzled smile that Carrot caused in innocent bystanders.
“Tree dace,” said Vimes. “Three days. That's seventy-two hours!”
“Yes, offendi?” said Jabbar. It was the voice of someone who recognized dawn, noon and sunset, and just let everything in between happen whenever it liked.
“So why's he called 71-hour Ahmed? What's so special about the extra hour?”
Jabbar grinned nervously.
“Did he do something after seventy-one hours?” said Vimes.
Jabbar folded his arms. “I will not say.”
“He told you to keep us here?”
“Yes.”
“But not to kill us.”
“Oh, I would not kill my friend Sir Sam Mule—”
“And don't give me all that eyeball rubbish,” said Vimes. “He wanted time to get somewhere and do something, right?”
“I will not say.”
“You don't need to,” said Vimes. “Because we are leaving. And if you kill us… well, probably you can. But 71-hour Ahmed would not like that, I expect.”
Jabbar looked like a man making a difficult decision.
“He will be coming back!” he said. “Tomorrow! No problem!”
“I'm not waiting! And I don't think he wants me killed, Jabbar. He wants me alive. Carrot?”
Carrot hurried over. “Yes, sir?”
Vimes was aware that Jabbar was staring at him in horror.
“We've lost Ahmed,” he said. “Even Angua can't pick up his trail with the sand blowing all over the place. We've got no place here. We're not needed here.”
“But we are, sir!” Carrot burst out. “We could help the desert tribes—”
“Oh, you want to stay and fight?” said Vimes. “Against the Klatchians?”
“Against the bad Klatchians, sir.”
“Ah, well, that's the trick, isn't it? When one of them comes screaming at you waving a sword, how do you spot his moral character? Well, you can stay if you like and fight for the good name of Ankh-Morpork. It should be a pretty short fight. But I'm off. Jenkins probably hasn't got afloat again. OK, Jabbar?”
The D'reg was staring at the desert sand between his feet.
“You know where he is now, don't you?” Vimes prompted.
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“No. I swore to him.”
“But D'regs are oath-breakers. Everyone knows that.”
Jabbar gave Vimes a grin. “Oh, oaths. Stupid things. I gave him my word.”
“He won't break it, sir,” said Carrot. “D'regs are very particular about things like that. It's only when they swear on gods and things that they'll ever break an oath.”
“I will not tell you where he is,” said Jabbar. “But…” he grinned again, but there was no humour in it, “how brave are you, Mr Vimes?”
“Stop complaining, Nobby.”
“I'm not complaining. I'm just sayin' these trousers are a bit draughty, that's all I'm saying.”
“They look good on you, though.”
“And what're these tin bowls supposed to be doing?”
“They're supposed to be protecting the bits you haven't got, Nobby.”
“The way this breeze is blowing, I could do with some to protect the bits I have.”
“Just try and act ladylike, will you, Nobby?”
Which would be hard, Sergeant Colon had to admit. The lady for whom the clothes had been made had been quite tall and somewhat full-figured, whereas Nobby without his armour could have hidden behind a short stick if you attached a toast rack to it about two-thirds of the way up. He looked like a gauzy accordion with a lot of jewellery. In theory, the costume would have been quite revealing, if Corporal Nobbs was something you wished to see revealed, but there were so many billows and folds now that all one could reliably say was that he was in there somewhere. He was leading the donkey, which seemed to like him. Animals tended t
o like Nobby. He didn't smell wrong.
“And them boots don't work,” Sergeant Colon went on.
“Why not? You kept yours on.”
“Yeah, but I'm not supposed to be a flower of the desert, right? A moon of someone's delight shouldn't kick up sparks when she walks, am I right?”
“They belonged to my gran, I ain't leaving 'em around for anyone to nick, and I ain't mooning for anyone's delight,” said Nobby sulkily.
Lord Vetinari strode on ahead. The streets were already filling up. Al-Khali liked to get the business of the day started in the cool of dawn, before full day flamethrowered the landscape. No one paid the newcomers any attention, although a few people did turn round to watch Corporal Nobbs. Goats and chickens ambled out of the way as they passed.
“Watch out for people trying to sell you dirty postcards, Nobby,” said Colon. “My uncle was here once and he said some bloke tried to sell him a pack of dirty postcards for five dollars. Disgusted, he was.”
“Yeah, 'cos you can get 'em in the Shades for two dollars,” said Nobby.
“That's what he said. And they were Ankh-Morpork ones. Trying to flog us our own dirty postcards? I call that disgusting, frankly.”
“Good morning, sultan!” said a cheerful and somehow familiar voice. “New in town, are we?”
All three of them turned to a figure that had magically appeared from the mouth of an alleyway.
“Indeed, yes,” said the Patrician.
“I could see you were! Everyone is, these days. And it is your lucky day, shah! I am here to help, right? You want something, I got it!”
Sergeant Colon had been staring at the newcomer. He said, in a faraway voice, “Your name's going to be something like… Al-jibla or something, right?”
“Heard about me, have you?” said the trader jovially.
“Sort of, yeah,” said Colon slowly. “You're amazingly… familiar.”
Lord Vetinari pushed him aside. “We are strolling entertainers,” he said. “We were hoping to get an engagement at the Prince's palace… Perhaps you could help?”
The man rubbed his beard thoughtfully, causing various particles to cascade into the little bowls in his tray.
“Dunno about the palace,” he said. “What's it you do?”
“We practise juggling, fire-eating, that sort of thing,” said Vetinari.
“Do we?” said Colon.
Al-jibla nodded at Nobby. “What does…”
“…she…” said Lord Vetinari helpfully.
“…she do?”
“Exotic dancing,” said Vetinari, while Nobby scowled.
“Pretty exotic, I should think,” said Al-jibla.
“You'd be amazed.”
A couple of armed men had drifted over to them. Sergeant Colon's heart sank. In those bearded faces he saw himself and Nobby, who at home would always saunter over to anything on the street that looked interesting.
“You are jugglers, are you?” said one of them. “Let's see you juggle, then.”
Lord Vetinari gave them a blank look and then glanced down at the tray around Al-jibla's neck. Among the more identifiable foodstuffs were a number of green melons.
“Very well,” he said, and picked up three of them.
Sergeant Colon shut his eyes.
After a few seconds he opened them again because a guard had said, “All right, but anyone can do it with three.”
“In that case perhaps Mr Al-jibla will throw me a few more?” said the Patrician, as the balls spun through his hands.
Sergeant Colon shut his eyes again.
After a short while a guard said, “Seven is pretty good. But it's just melons.”
Colon opened his eyes.
The Klatchian guard twitched his robe aside. Half a dozen throwing knives glinted. And so did his teeth.
Lord Vetinari nodded. To Colon's growing surprise he did not seem to be watching the tumbling melons at all.
“Four melons and three knives,” he said. “If you would care to give the knives to my charming assistant Beti…”
“Who?” said Nobby.
“Oh? Why not seven knives, then?”
“Kind sirs, that would be too simple,” said Lord Vetinari.13 “I am but a humble tumbler. Please let me practice my art.”
“Beti?” said Nobby, glowering under his veils.
Three fruits arced gently out of the green whirl and thumped on to Al-jibla's tray.
The guards looked carefully, and to Colon's mind nervously, at the cross-dressed figure of the cross corporal.
“She's not going to do any kind of dance, is she?” one of them ventured.
“No!” snapped Beti.
“Promise?”14
Nobby grabbed three of the knives and tugged them out of the man's belt.
“I'll give them to his lor— to him, shall I, Beti?” said Colon, suddenly quite sure that keeping the Patrician alive was almost certainly the only way to avoid a brief cigarette in the sunshine. He was also aware that other people were drifting over to watch the show.
“To me, please… Al,” said the Patrician, nodding.
Colon tossed him the knives, slowly and gingerly. He's going to try to stab the guards, he thought. It's a ruse. And then everyone's going to tear us apart.
Now the circling blur glinted in the sunlight. There was a murmur of approval from the crowd.
“Yet somehow dull,” said the Patrician.
And his hands moved in a complex pattern that suggested that his wrists must have moved through one another at least twice.
The tangled ball of hurtling fruit and cutlery leapt into the air.
Three melons dropped to the ground, cut cleanly in two.
Three knives thudded into the dust a few inches from their owner's sandals.
And Sergeant Colon looked up and into a growing, greenish, expanding—
The melon exploded, and so did the audience, but both their laughter and the humour was slightly lost on Colon as he scraped over-ripe pith out of his ears.
The survival instinct cut in again. Stagger around backwards, it said. So he staggered around backwards, waving his legs in the air. Fall down heavily, it said. So he sat down, and almost squashed a chicken. Lose your dignity, it said; of all the things you've got, it's the one you can most afford to lose.
Lord Vetinari helped him up. “Our very lives depend on your appearing to be a stupid fat idiot,” he hissed, putting Colon's fez back on his head.
“I ain't very good at acting, sir—”
“Good!”
“Yessir.”
The Patrician scooped up three melon halves and positively skipped over to a stall that a woman had just set up, snatching an egg from a basket as he went past. Sergeant Colon blinked again. This was not… real. The Patrician didn't do this sort of thing…
“Ladies and gentlemen! You see — an egg! And here we have a — melon rind! Egg, melon! Melon, egg!{80} We put the melon over the egg!” His hands darted across the three halves, switching them at bewildering speed. “Round and round they go, just like that! Now… where's the egg? What about you, shah?”
Al-jibla smirked.
“'s the one on the left,” he said. “It always is.”
Lord Vetinari lifted the melon. The board below was eggless.
“And you, noble guardsman?”
“'s got to be the one in the middle,” said the guard.
“Yes, of course… oh dear, it isn't…”
The crowd looked at the last melon. They were street people. They knew the score. When the object can be under one of three things, and it's already turned out not to be under two of them, then the one place it was certainly not going to be was under the third. Only some kind of gullible fool would believe something like that. Of course there was going to be a trick. There always was a trick. But you watched it, in order to see a trick done well.
Lord Vetinari raised the melon nevertheless, and the crowd nodded in satisfaction. Of course it wasn't there. It'd be a pretty poor d
ay for street entertainment if things were where they were supposed to be.
Sergeant Colon knew what was going to happen next, and he knew this because for the last minute or so something had been pecking at his head.
Aware that this was probably his moment, he raised his fez and revealed a very small fluffy chick.
“Have you got a towel? I am afraid it has just gone to the toilet on my head, sir.”
There was laughter, some applause and, to his amazement, a tinkling of coins around his feet.
“And finally,” said the Patrician, “the beautiful Beti will do an exotic dance.”
The crowd fell silent.
Then someone at the back said, “How much do we have to pay for her not to?”
“Right! I've just about had enough of this!” Veils flying out behind her, bangles jingling, elbows waving viciously and boots kicking up sparks, the lovely Beti strode into the crowd. “Which of you said that?”
People shrank away from her. Armies would have retreated. And there, revealed like a jellyfish deserted by a suddenly ebbing tide, was a small man about to fry in the wrath of the ascendant Nobbs.
“I meant no offence, oh doe-eyed one—”
“Oh? Pastry-faced, am I?” Nobby flung out an arm in a crash of bracelets and knocked the man over. “You've got a lot to learn about women, young man!” And then, because a Nobbs could never resist a prone target, the petite Beti drew back a steel-capped boot—
“Beti!” snapped the Patrician.
“Oh, right, yeah, right,” said Nobby, with veiled contempt. “Everyone can tell me what to do, right? Just because I happen to be the woman around here I'm just supposed to accept it all, eh?”
“No, you just ain't supposed to kick him inna fork,” hissed Colon, pulling him away. “It don't look good.” Although he noted, the women in the crowd seemed to be disappointed by the sudden curtailment of the performance.
“And there are many strange stories we can tell you!” shouted the Patrician.
“Beti certainly could,” murmured Colon, and was kicked sharply on his ankle.
“And many strange sights we can show you!”
“Beti cert— Aargh!”
“But for now we will seek the shade of yonder caravanserai…”
“What're we doing?”
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