The Fifth Elephant

It was just that she was certain that venison shouldn't be served boiled, with potatoes that were crunchy. If they were potatoes, of course. Potatoes weren't usually grey. Even Sam, who liked the black lumpy bits you got in some mashed potatoes, would have commented. But Sybil had been brought up properly; if you can't find something nice to say about the food, find something else to be nice about.

'These are... really very interesting plates,' she said dutifully. 'Er, are you sure there's been no more news?' She tried to avoid watching the Baron. He was ignoring Sybil and his wife, and was prodding the meat around on his plate as if he'd forgotten what a knife and fork were for.

'Wolfgang and his friends are still out searching,' said Serafine. 'But this is terrible weather for a man to be on the run.'

'He is not on the run!' snapped Sybil. 'Sam is not guilty of anything!'

'Of course, of course. All the evidence is circumstantial. Of course,' said the Baroness soothingly. 'Now, I suggest that as soon as they have the passes clear, you and the, er, the staff get back to the safety of Ankh-Morpork before the real winter hits. We know the country, my dear. If your husband is alive, we can soon do something about it.'

'I will not have him shamed like this! You saw him save the King!'

'I'm sure he did, Sybil. I'm afraid I was talking to my husband at the time, but I don't disbelieve you for a minute. Is it true that he killed all those men in the Wilinus Pass?'

'What? But they were bandits!'

At the other end of the table the Baron had picked up a lump of meat and was trying to tear it apart with his teeth.

'Well, of course. Yes. Of course.'

Sybil pinched the bridge of her nose. Most of her would not have considered Sam Vimes guilty of murder, actual murder, even on the evidence of three gods and a message written on the sky. But stories did get back to her, in a roundabout way. Sam got wound up about things. Sometimes he unwound all at once. There'd been that bad business with that little girl and those men over at Dolly Sisters, and when Sam had broken into the men's lodging he found one of them had stolen one of her shoes, and she'd heard Detritus say that if he hadn't been there only Sam would have walked out of the room alive.

She shook her head. 'I really would like a bath,' she said. There was a clatter from the other end of the table.

'Dear, you will have to eat your dinner in the changing room,' said the Baroness, without looking round. She flashed Lady Sybil a brief, brittle smile. 'We do not, in fact, have a... have such a, a device in the castle.' A thought occurred to her. 'We use the hot springs. So much more hygienic.'

'Out in the forest?'

'Oh, it's quite close. And a quick run around in the snow really tones up the body.'

'I think perhaps I'll have a lie-down instead,' said Lady Sybil firmly. 'But thank you all the same.'

She made her way to the musty bedroom, fuming in a ladylike way.

She couldn't bring herself to like Serafine, and this was shocking, because Lady Sybil even liked Nobby Nobbs, and that took breeding. But the werewolf scraped across her nerves like a file. She remembered that she'd never liked her at school, either.

Among the other unwanted baggage that had been heaped on the young Sybil to hamper her progress through life was the injunction to be pleasant to people and say helpful things. People took this to mean that she didn't think.

She'd hated the way Serafine had talked about dwarfs. She'd called them 'sub-human'. Well, obviously most of them lived underground, but Sybil rather liked dwarfs. And Serafine spoke of trolls as if they were things. Sybil hadn't met many trolls, but the ones she knew seemed to spend their lives raising their children and looking for the next dollar just like everyone else.

Worst of all, Serafine simply assumed that Sybil would naturally agree with her stupid opinions because she was a Lady. Sybil Ramkin had not had an education in these things, moral philosophy not having featured much in a curriculum that was heavy on flower-arranging, but she had a shrewd idea that in any possible debate the right side was where Serafine wasn't.

She'd only ever written all those letters to her because it was what you did. You always wrote letters to old friends, even if you weren't very friendly with them.

She sat on the bed and stared at the wall until the shouting started, and when the shouting started she knew Sam was alive and well, because only Sam made people that angry.

She heard the key click in the lock.

Sybil rebelled.

She was large and she was kind. She hadn't enjoyed school much. A society of girls is not a good one in which to be large and kind, because people are inclined to interpret that as 'stupid' and, worse, 'deaf'.

Lady Sybil looked out of the window. She was two floors up.