Jingo - Terry Pratchett [110]
“Why do you ask, o full-of-gas one?”
“Oh, we thought we could make a bit of cash entertaining the troops,” said Colon. He was immensely proud of this idea. “You know…a smile, a song, a lack of exotic dancing. But that means we got to know where they are, see?”
“Excuse me, fat one, but can you understand what I am saying?”
“Yes, it’s very tasty,” Colon hazarded.
“Ah, I thought so. So he’s a spy. But whose?”
“Really? Who would be so stupid as to use a joke like this as a spy?”
“Ankh-Morpork?”
“Oh, come on! He’s pretending to be an Ankh-Morpork spy, perhaps. But they’re cunning over there”
“You think? A people who make curry out of something called powder and you think they’re clever?”
“I reckon he’s from Muntab. They’re always watching us.”
“And pretending to be from Ankh-Morpork?”
“Well, if you were trying to look like a joke Morporkian pretending to be Klatchian, wouldn’t you look like that?”
“But why’d he pretend to be from there?”
“Ah…politics.”
“Let’s call the Watch, then.”
“Are you mad? We’ve been talking to him! They will be…inquisitive.”
“Good point. I know…”
Faifal gave Colon a big grin.
“I did hear the entire army has marched away to En al Sams la Laisa,” he said. “But don’t tell anyone.”
“Have they?” Colon glanced at the other men. They were watching him with curiously deadpan expressions.
“Sounds like a massive place, with a name like that,” he said.
“Oh, huge,” said his neighbor. One of the other men made a noise that you might think was a suppressed chuckle.
“It’s a long way, is it?”
“No, very close. You’re practically on top of it,” said Faifal. He nudged a colleague, whose shoulders were shaking.
“Oh, right. Big army, is it?”
“Could easily be very big, yes.”
“Fine. Fine,” said Colon. “Er…anyone got a pencil? I could’ve sworn I had one when—”
There was a noise outside the tavern. It was the sound of many women laughing, which is always a disquieting noise to men.* Customers peered suspiciously through the vines.
Colon and the rest of the crowd looked around an urn at the group by the well. An old lady was rolling on the ground, laughing, and various younger ones were leaning against one another for support.
He heard one of them say, “What did he say again?”
“He said, ‘That’s funny, it’s never done that when I’ve tried it!’”
“Yeah, that’s true!” cackled the old woman. “It never does!”
“‘That’s funny, it’s never done that when I’ve tried it,’” Nobby repeated.
Colon groaned. That was the voice and tone of Corporal Nobbs in storytelling mode, when wood could scorch at ten yards.
“’scuse me,” he muttered, and forced his way through the press to the gateway.
“Have you heard the one about the ki…the sultan who was afraid his wife…one of his wives…would be unfaithful to him while he was away?”
“We haven’t heard any stories like these, Beti!” Bana gasped.
“Really? Oh, I’ve got a thousand and one of ’em. Well, anyway, he went and saw the wise old blacksmith, right, and he said—”
“You can’t go round telling stories like that, cor—Beti,” Colon panted as he lumbered to a halt.
Nobby realized that a change had come over the group. Now he was surrounded by women who were in the presence of a man. A known man, he corrected himself.
Several of them were blushing. They hadn’t blushed before.
“Why not?” said Beti nastily.
“You’ll offend people,” said Colon uncertainly.
“Er, we are not offended, sir,” said Bana, in a small humble voice. “We think Beti’s stories are very…instructive. Especially the one about the man who went into the tavern with the very small musician.”
“And that was pretty hard to translate,” said Nobby, “because they don’t really know what a piano is in Klatch. But it turns out there’s this kind of stringed—”
“And it was very interesting about the man with his arms and legs in plaster,” said Netal.
“Yeah, and they laughed even though they don’t have the same kind of doorbells here,” said Nobby. “Here, you don’t have to go—”
But the group around the well was dispersing. Water jugs were being picked up and carried