looked up and saw a horizon the colours of a bruise, while all round him the air was calm and warm and insects and other creatures that he couldn’t guess at were buzzing in the undergrowth. Satisfied that he need not look for cover yet, he turned his attention back to the squirming lawyer.
‘May I suggest, Mister Stoner, that you suddenly develop a pressing reason to go to the city and possibly talk to some of the senior lawyers there? I suggest that you describe yourself as foolish, and when they see your damp trousers, that will act as corroboration, believe me. If necessary, I might find it in my heart to make a statement on your behalf, to the effect that I think you were silly and badly led rather than criminal.’
The look of gratitude read well, and so Vimes added, ‘Why don’t you try criminal law? It’s mostly grievous bodily harm and murderers these days. You could call it ointment for the soul. Just a couple of things, though: what do you know about goblins being sent downriver? And what do you know about the disappearance of Jefferson the blacksmith?’
It’s never nice to face a difficult question when you’re thinking about getting on a horse and travelling long distances at speed. ‘I can assure you, your grace,’ replied the man, ‘that I know nothing about the disappearance of the smith, if indeed he hasn’t simply gone to work elsewhere. And goblins? Yes, I know that some were sent away some years ago, but I took up this post two years back and I cannot comment on those circumstances.’ He added primly, ‘I have no knowledge whatsoever of any goblins being dispossessed of their accommodation lately, as the chief constable appears to believe.’
Turning his back so the craning crowd could not easily see what was happening, Vimes glared at him. ‘I congratulate you on your careful ignorance, Mister Stoner.’ He then grabbed the prim lawyer by the neck and said, ‘Listen to me, you little shit. What you tell me may strictly speaking be true, but you are a bloody stupid lawyer if you haven’t realized that a bunch of landowners cannot decide all by themselves that anything they want to do is the law. If you want to keep in with both sides, Mister Stoner, and I imagine that you do, then you might find a moment in your busy schedule to tell your
He gently released the pressure and said quietly, ‘Very soon this will be an unfortunate place for you, Mister Stoner.’ Then, turning, so that the crowd could see, he took the bewildered lawyer’s hand, shook it lavishly and said loudly, ‘Thank you very much for such valuable information, sir. It’ll make my investigations a whole lot simpler, I can tell you! And I’m sure that Chief Constable Upshot will feel exactly the same way. It would be a much easier life for all of us if other upstanding folk were so quick to assist the police with their inquiries.’ He looked at the stricken lawyer and said more quietly, ‘I am no judge, but some of those men have a certain look about them. I know the sort, probably got more teeth than brain cells, and now, Mister Lawyer, they’re wondering how much you know and how much you’ve told me. I wouldn’t stop to pack if I was you, and I hope you’ve got a fast horse.’
The lawyer left at speed and, at a meaningful nod from Feeney, so did the mob, more or less evaporating into the scenery; and Vimes thought, another one snookered. Get the reds, get the colours, but sooner or later you’re after the black.
And now he was left with the company of only Willikins and the chief constable, who looked around like someone realizing that he might not only have bitten off more than he could chew, but also more than he could lift. He straightened up when he saw Vimes looking at him. It was time for a little reinforcement, so Vimes walked over and slapped the lad on the back. ‘Well, I don’t know, I’m sure! Well done, Chief Constable Upshot, and this time I’m not laughing at you, Feeney, I’m not making fun, I’m not talking you down, and I cannot believe that you are the lad I met only two days ago! You stood up to them, right enough! A bunch of dangerous idiots! With a lawyer!’
‘They shot an arrow at my old mum! Oh, they said they didn’t, ’cos they was hoping to frighten us off! They said they had no arrows! So I said, quick as a wink, well, you wouldn’t have any arrows now if you’d shot them at my old mum, would you? So that proves it, I told them, I said, that’s logic, and they didn’t know what to say!’
‘Well, I’m at a loss for words myself, Feeney, because it seems to me that I heard you say some more goblins were sent downriver yesterday. How did you find that out?’
Feeney waved a thumb in the direction of the lock-up and grinned. ‘Here’s the key, sir, just you go and talk to our prisoner. You’ll love it, sir, he was beside himself when he knew they were coming for him and he sang like a nightingale, didn’t he just!’
‘Generally, we say that they sing like a canary,’ said Vimes, turning towards the stubby little building.
‘Yes, sir, but this is a rural police station, sir, and I know my birds, sir, and he sang like a nightingale, right enough! A beautiful watery cadence, sir, second only to the trill of the robin in my opinion, possibly occasioned by his being really, really scared, sir. I’ll have to slosh a bucket in there in a minute.’
‘Well done again, Feeney! Might I suggest at this time that you go in and see to your old mum? She’ll be worried about you. Old mums do worry, you know.’
Wee Mad Arthur was impressed. Why hadn’t anybody told him about the craw step before? Well, it was only recently that he had learned that he was, by birth, a Nac mac Feegle instead of, as he had been given to understand, the child of peaceful, shoe-making gnomes. Feegles did not wear shoes and neither were they peaceful. Like many people before and after, Wee Mad Arthur had always thought that he was in the wrong life.
When the truth had fortuitously been uncovered, it all seemed to make sense. He could be proud of being a Nac mac Feegle, albeit one who enjoyed the occasional visit to the ballet and could read a menu in Quirmian and, for that matter, read at all.
He cruised above the warm blue skies of Howondaland in great circles and enjoying himself no end. The whole continent! There were people on it, so he understood, but mostly what he was seeing from the air was either desert, mountain or, most of all, green jungle. He allowed the albatross to drift on the thermals as his keen eyes searched for what he suspected might be there. It was, in fact, not a thing, as such, but a concept: rectangular. People who planted things
And there it was! Right down there on the coast. Definitely rectangular and quite a lot of it. After a brief meal of hardboiled egg he persuaded the bird to perch in a treetop. Jumping to the ground was no fearsome undertaking for one of Feegle stock.
As evening began to fall, Wee Mad Arthur walked through line after line of fragrant tobacco plants. But also noticeably rectangular, in this land where geometry was rare, were the sheds, visible not far away.
He moved stealthily to begin with and increasingly more stealthily when he saw the pile, white and complex in the gloaming. The whiteness consisted of bones. Small bones, not Feegle but far too small for human; and then, when he investigated further, he saw the corpses. One of them was still moving, more or less.
Wee Mad Arthur recognized a goblin when he saw one. There were enough people who did not like Feegles for Feegles not to be too snotty on the subject of goblins. They were a damn nuisance, but even Feegles would be happy to agree that so were they themselves. And being a nuisance is not something you should die of. In short,
