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'What,' said Angua, reading the menu, 'is a Screaming Orgasm?'
'Ah,' said Sally. 'Looks like we got to you just in time, girl!'
'No,' sighed Angua, as the others laughed; that was such a vampire response. 'I
mean, what's it made of?'
'Almonte, Wahlulu, Bearhuggers Whiskey Cream and vodka,' said Tawneee, who
knew the recipe for every cocktail ever made.
'And how does it work?' said Cheery, craning to see over the top of the bar.
Sally ordered four, and turned back to Tawneee. 'So you and Nobby Nobbs, eh?' she
said. 'How about that?' Three sets of ears flared.
The other thing you got used to in the presence of Tawneee was silence. Everywhere
she went, went quiet. Oh, and the stares. The silent stares. And sometimes, in the
shadows, a sigh. There were goddesses who'd kill to look like Tawneee.
'He's nice,' said Tawneee. 'He makes me laugh and he keeps his hands to himself.'
Three faces locked in expressions of concentrated thought. This was Nobby they
were talking about. There were so many questions they were not going to ask.
'Has he shown you the tricks he can do with his spots?' Angua said.
'Yes. I thought I'd widdle myself! He's so funny!'
Angua stared into her drink. Cheery coughed. Sally studied the menu.
'And he's very dependable,' said Tawneee. And, as if dimly aware that this was still
not sufficient, she added sadly, 'If you must know, he's the first boy who's ever asked
me out.'
Sally and Angua breathed out together. Light dawned. Ah, that was the problem. And
this one's a baaaad case.
'I mean, my hair's all over the place, my legs are too long and I know my bosom is far
too-' Tawneee went on, but Sally had raised a quieting hand.
'First point, Tawneee-'
'My real name's Betty,' said Tawneee, blowing a nose so exquisite that the greatest
sculptor in the world would have wept to carve it. It went Blort.
'First point, then Betty,' Sally managed, struggling to use the name, 'is that no woman
under forty-five-'
'Fifty,' Angua corrected.
'Right, fifty no woman under fifty uses the word "bosom" to name anything connected
to her. You just don't do it.'
'I didn't know that,' Tawneee sniffed.
'It's a fact,' said Angua. And, oh dear, how to begin to explain the jerk syndrome? To
someone like Tawneee, on whom the name Betty stuck like rocks to a ceiling? This
wasn't just a case of the jerk syndrome, this was it, the quintessential, classic, pure
platonic example, which should be stuffed and mounted and preserved as a teaching
aid for students in the centuries to come. And she was happy with Nobby!
'What I've got to tell you now is' she began, and faded in the face of the task, 'is Look,
shall we have another drink? What's the next cocktail on the menu?'
Cheery peered at it. 'Pink, Big and Wobbly,' she announced. 'Classy! We'll have four!'
Fred Colon peered through the bars. He was, on the whole, a pretty good jailer: he
always had a pot of tea on the go, he was as a general rule amiably disposed to most
people, he was too slow to be easily fooled and he kept the cell keys in a tin box in
the bottom drawer of his desk, a long way out of reach of any stick, hand, dog,
cunningly thrown belt or trained Klatchian monkey spider. [1 Making Fred Colon
possibly unique in the annals of jail history.]
He was a bit worried about this dwarf. You got all sorts in jail, and they often yelled a
bit but with this one he didn't know what was worse, the sobbing or the silence. He'd
put a candlestick on a stool by the bars, too, because the dwarf carried on alarmingly
if there wasn't enough light.
He stirred the tea reflectively and handed a mug to Nobby.
'We've got a rum 'un here, I reckon,' he said. 'A dwarf that's scared of the dark? Not
right in the head, then. Wouldn't touch his tea and biscuit. What do you think?'
'I think I'll have his biscuit,' said Nobby, reaching over to the plate.
'Why're you down here, anyway?' said Fred. 'I'm surprised you ain't out there a-ogling
of young women.'
'Tawneee's going out boozing with the girls tonight,' said Nobby.
'Ah, you want to warn her about that sort of thing,' said Fred Colon. 'You know what
it's like in the centre when the pubs and clubs empty. There's throwin' up and yellin'
and unladylike behaviour and takin' their vests off and I don't know what. 'S called .
'he scratched his head' minge drinking.'
'She's only gone out with Angua and Sally and Cheery, sarge,' said Nobby, taking
another biscuit.
'Oooh, you wanna watch that, Nobby. Women gangin' up on men-' Fred paused. 'A
vampire and a werewolf out on the razzle? Take my tip, lad, stay indoors tonight. And
if they start behaving in-'
He stopped as the sound of Sam Vimes's voice came down the spiral stone steps,
followed closely by its owner.
'So I've got to stop them forming a block, right?'
'If you're playing the troll side, yes,' said a new voice. 'A tight group of dwarfs is bad
news for trolls.'
'Trolls shove, dwarfs throw.'
'Right.'
'And the central rock, no one can jump that, right?' said Vimes.
'Yes.'
'I still think the dwarfs have it all their own way.'
'We shall see. The important thing-'
Vimes stopped when he saw Nobby and Colon. 'Okay, lads, I'll talk to the prisoner
now,' he said. 'How is he?'
Fred indicated the hunched figure on the narrow bunk in the corner cell.
'Captain Carrot tried talking to him for nearly half an hour, and you know he's got a
way with people,' he said. 'Didn't get as much as a sentence out of him. I read him
his rights but don't ask me if he understood 'em. He didn't want his tea and biscuit, at
any rate. That's Rights 5 and 5b,' he added, looking Bashfullsson up and down. 'He
gets Right 5c only if we've got Teatime Assortment.'
'Can he walk?' said Vimes.
'He sort of shuffles, sir.'
'Fetch him out, then,' said Vimes, and seeing Fred's enquiring look at Bashfullsson
he went on: 'This gentleman is here to make sure we don't use the rubber truncheon,
sergeant:
'Didn't know we had one, Mister Vimes,' said Fred.
'We haven't,' said Vimes. 'No point in hitting 'em with something that bounces, eh?'
he added, looking at Bashfullsson, who smiled, once again, his strange little smile.
One candle burned on the table. For some reason Fred had seen fit to put another on
a stool near the one occupied cell.
'Isn't it a bit dark in here, Fred?' said Vimes, as he pushed aside the debris of mugs
and old newspapers that covered most of the table.
'Yessir. The dwarfs came and nicked some of our candles to put round their heathe-
that nasty sign,' said Fred, with a nervous look at Bashfullsson. 'Sorry, sir.'
'I don't know why we can't just burn it,' grumbled Vimes, setting out the Thud board.
'That would be dangerous, now that the Summoning Dark is in the world,' said
Bashfullsson.
'You believe in that stuff?' said Vimes.
'Believe? No,' said the grag. 'I just know it exists. The troll pieces go all round the
central stone, sir,' he added helpfully.
Populating the board with its little warriors took some time, but so did the arrival of
Helmclever. With Fred Colon steering him carefully by a shoulder he walked like
someone in a dream, his eyes turned up so that they mostly showed the whites. His
iron boots scraped on the flagstones.
Fred pushed him gently into a chair and put the second candle beside him. Like
magic, the dwarf's eyes focused on the little stone armies to the exclusion of
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