Feet of Clay - Terry Pratchett [85]
“And she said, ‘That’s funny—it didn’t do that last night’!” said Corporal Nobbs.
He beamed at the company.
There was silence. Then someone in the crowd started to laugh, one of those little uncertain laughs a man laughs who is unsure that he’s not going to be silenced by those around him. Another man laughed. Two more picked it up. Then laughter exploded in the group as a whole.
Nobby basked.
“Then there’s the one about the Klatchian who walked into a pub with a tiny piano—” he began.
“I think,” said Lady Selachii firmly, “that the buffet is ready.”
“Got any pig knuckles?” said Nobby cheerfully. “Goes down a treat with Winkles, a plate of pig knuckles.”
“I don’t normally eat extremities,” said Lady Selachii.
“A pig-knuckle sandwich…Never tried a pig knuckle? You just can’t beat it,” said Nobby.
“It is…perhaps…not the most delicate food?” said Lady Selachii.
“Oh, you can cut the crusts off,” said Nobby. “Even the toenails. If you’re feeling posh.”
Sergeant Colon opened his eyes, and groaned. His head ached. They’d hit him with something. It might have been a wall.
They’d tied him up, too. He was trussed hand and foot.
He appeared to be lying in darkness on a wooden floor. There was a greasy smell in the air, which seemed familiar yet annoyingly unrecognizable.
As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark he could make out very faint lines of light, such as might surround a door. He could also hear voices.
He tried to get up to his knees, and groaned as more pain crackled in his head.
When people tied you up it was bad news. Of course, it was much better news than when they killed you, but it could mean they were just putting you on one side for killing later.
This never used to happen, he told himself. In the old days, if you caught someone thieving, you practically held the door open for him to escape. That way, you got home in one piece.
By using the angle between a wall and a heavy crate he managed to get upright. This was not much of an improvement on his former position, but after the thunder in his head had died away he hopped awkwardly towards the door.
There were still voices on the other side of it.
Someone apart from Sergeant Colon was in trouble.
“—clown! You got me here for this? There’s a werewolf in the Watch! Ah-ha. Not one of your freaks. She’s a proper bimorphic! If you tossed a coin, she could smell what side it came down!”
“How about if we kill him and drag his body away?”
“You think she couldn’t smell the difference between a corpse and a living body?”
Sergeant Colon moaned softly.
“Er, how about we could march him out in the fog—?”
“And they can smell fear, idiot. Ah-ha. Why couldn’t you have let him look around? What could he have seen? I know that copper. A fat old coward with all the brains of, ah-ha, a pig. He stinks of fear all the time.”
Sergeant Colon hoped he wasn’t about to stink of anything else.
“Send Meshugah after him, ah-ha.”
“Are you sure? It’s getting odd. It wanders off and screams in the night, and they’re not supposed to do that. And it’s cracking up. Trust dumb golems not to do something prop—”
“Everyone knows you can’t trust golems. Ah-ha. See to it!”
“I heard that Vimes is—”
“I’ve seen to Vimes!”
Colon eased himself away from the door as quietly as possible. He hadn’t the faintest idea what this thing called Meshugah the golems had made was, except that it sounded like a fine idea to be wherever it wasn’t.
Now, if he were a resourceful type, like Sam Vimes or Captain Carrot, he’d…find a nail or something to snap these ropes, wouldn’t he? They were really tight, and cut into his wrists because the cord was so thin, little more than string wound and knotted many times. If he could find something to rub it on…
But, unfortunately, and against all common sense, sometimes people inconsiderately throw their bound enemies into rooms entirely bereft of nails, handy bits of sharp stone, sharp-edged shards of glass or even, in extreme cases, enough pieces of old junk and tools