Every Inch a King

VII

Ah, Fushe-Kuqe! Fushe-Kuqe! Some ancient Aenean poet sang of its beauty all those years ago. I presume he had the advantage of not approaching the place in a smuggler.

Actually, it is pretty. It sits in a little sapphire-blue bay punched out of the rim of Shqiperi: the only decent harbor the country has. All around the edge of the bay and running a few miles to either side are beautiful beaches of white and golden sand. The rest of Shqiperi’s coast consists of an unappetizing mix of rocks, boulders, crags, cliffs, and out-and-out mountains, leaping straight up from the Tiberian Sea as if their shoelaces were on fire. Some of this terrain is thickly wooded. Most of it is too steep for trees; they would have to grow sideways if they grew at all.

The land rises steeply back of the bay, too, but half a mile to a mile back of it. Fushe-Kuqe runs up from the sea to the ridge line. The ancient Dalmatians-the ancestors of the Shqipetari-first fortified the place, but they did a spotty job of it, so Lokrian freebooters were able to capture it. In due course, the Dalmatians took it back, with the usual massacre to celebrate the change of ownership. The Aeneans took it away from them, and celebrated with a bigger massacre. Each new owner added new fortifications, figuring he would be there forever. Forever usually worked out to about a lifetime: over the past thousand years, Fushe-Kuqe has changed hands thirteen times.

When Tasos told that to Max, he said, “How lucky.” That left Tasos scratching his head-or maybe he did have dandruff with legs after all. But the Lokrians don’t suffer from triskaidekaphobia, even if the name comes from pieces of classical Lokrian.

By then, Max was wearing the enormous Hassocki captain’s uniform he’d got from Manolis in Thasos. I had on the colonel’s outfit I’d bought there. Some of Tasos’ smugglers looked askance at us. I’d never seen a skance before, but lots of skances were flying around as we came into the harbor. If we hadn’t fought the pirates alongside them, if Max hadn’t curbed the sea serpent’s tongue, we might have gone into the harbor, all right, with rocks tied around our feet. But we had, and so, while the skances flew, they didn’t light on us.

Stagiros got us up alongside a wharf with his usual elegance. He was the best thing aboard the Gamemeno. If not for him, we likely wouldn’t have got to Fushe-Kuqe at all. He looked from Max to me and back again. “Good luck-your Majesty,” he said in flawless Hassocki.

“North and south, east and west, may good come to you from every direction,” I replied. I had to remember all the time from now on that I was a Hassocki, a follower of the Quadrate God.

What a role!

And what a risk! That started to sink in now, when it was too late to do anything about it. If even once I absentmindedly swore by Eliphalet’s whiskers or made the sign of the Two with index and middle fingers, I was a dead man, and so was Max. Stagiros gave me a small bow and an even smaller smile. I’d passed the first tiny test.

Down went the gangplank with a thud. My head would make a thud like that if something went wrong. I glanced over at Max. He was smiling, which is not something you see every day. I wondered if our spirits had got up in the wrong bodies this morning. Me worrying? Max cheerful? The cosmic order of things was definitely out of order.

We stepped onto the pier. My worries fell away like fireballs from a dragon. Maybe, as Stagiros said, it was madness. Or maybe I realized it was too late to turn back, and I had to go on. Or maybe those two were one and the same. However it was, I knew I was in the ring again. I had my audience out there. And I had to perform.

“Here comes trouble,” Max murmured-in Hassocki. He sounded like his old self, too, but his old self in character.

I saw the trouble as soon as he did. Two Hassocki soldiers-a young lieutenant with a neat hairline mustache and an older sergeant with an enormous soup-strainer-walked toward the base of the pier. The lieutenant wore only a ceremonial sword. The sergeant carried a pike, had a much more businesslike sword and a knife on his belt, and no doubt kept some other lethal implements secreted here and there about his person.

“Let’s go,” I said to Max, and started down the pier toward them. He followed a pace behind me and a pace to my left: just where a prince’s aide-de-camp should walk. Yes, he’d thought I was crazy for a lot longer than Stagiros had. But he wasn’t about to give me away. Of course, it was his neck, too. If they decided to kill me, they weren’t what you’d call likely to leave him alone.

The lieutenant looked down at something in the palm of his left hand, up toward me, then down at his hand again. I couldn’t see what he had there, but I could make a pretty good guess. If that wasn’t another sorcerous reproduction of the portrait that had run in the Thasos Chronicle and started me off on this adventure, then I wasn’t Prince Halim Eddin.

Which I bloody well wasn’t. Except I had to be.

That lieutenant looked up at me one more time. I stopped. So did Max. He stopped breathing, too. “Your Highness?” the lieutenant said, and Max exhaled again. Now that you mention it, I did, too.

If I was going to do this, I was going to do it to the hilt. I looked down my nose at him and said, “I expected to be met by Essad Pasha himself,” in tones that should have frozen the sun.

The lieutenant was swarthy, but I could see him turn red anyhow. The look on the sergeant’s face said, I told you so. It also said, I wonder how much trouble we’re in. One thing it didn’t say was, He speaks funny Hassocki. The way I sounded seemed to satisfy the lieutenant, too. He bowed to me and said, “Please excuse us, your Highness. We were ordered to escort you to him.”

We were ordered meant, It’s not our fault. It was cleverly phrased, so much so that the sergeant smiled at him, and you don’t see an underofficer smiling at an officer every day.

“Oh, very well.” By the way I said it, I’d been planning to take their heads but I supposed-just barely supposed, mind you-it wasn’t worth the mess it would make. The sergeant’s smile flickered and blew out. I went on, “Escort us, then.”

Bowing again-more deeply this time-the lieutenant said, “Yes, your Highness. Just as you say, your Highness. Please come with us, your Highness.” His knees weren’t knocking together, but they weren’t far from it.

I glanced back at Max. My face said, I could get used to this. Without moving a muscle, his face said, You are used to this, and you’d better remember it. He’s even more annoying than usual when he’s right. We followed Essad Pasha’s soldiers (my soldiers now!) into Fushe-Kuqe.

Our guides stopped at an elegant Torinan-style building next to a temple to the Quadrate God. Torino, of course, is just on the other side of the Tiberian Sea. It’s been interested in grabbing Fushe-Kuqe and all of Shqiperi for years. This proves only one thing: the Torinans haven’t taken a very good look at the country they say they want. If they had, they wouldn’t.

Several grim-faced guards stood outside the arched doorway. They looked ready to shoot anything that moved. If it didn’t move, they looked ready to shoot it anyway, just to see if putting a couple of holes in it might get it moving-at which point, they would shoot it again.

When they saw me, they stiffened to attention. They banged their heels together-a Schlepsigian style that’s caught on in the Hassocki army. “Your Highness!” they bawled, more or less in unison. That done, they goggled at Max, who towered head and shoulders above the tallest of them. He affected not to notice they existed. They were only soldiers, after all, while he was an officer. In his own surly way, he was playing his role to the hilt, too.

I, however, was a prince. I had to notice all my people, even if I knew they were beneath me. “At ease,” I told the guards, and they relaxed their brace-about a hair’s worth. I turned back to my escorts. “Take me to Essad Pasha.”

“Yes, your Highness,” they said together. The sergeant opened the door. The lieutenant bowed and gestured. Followed by my aide-de-camp-who had to duck to get under the lintel-I preceded him into Essad Pasha’s headquarters. The sergeant came last, and closed the door behind us. That sort of thing was what soldiers were for.

Stepping lively, the lieutenant got out in front of me and led me down a corridor to an airy aerie that gave a good view of the harbor. “He’s here, your Excellency!” he said, his voice throbbing with excitement.

“Well, then, he’d better come in here, hadn’t he?” a gruff voice answered. If it held any excitement, it held it very close indeed. Max coughed. Max coughs too much for his own good, but I knew what he meant this time-something on the order of, You won’t impress this fellow with your high and mighty manners.

I didn’t see it that way. If anything would impress someone like Essad Pasha, it was a prince acting like a prince. I strode into the office and stood waiting expectantly.

Essad Pasha sat behind a businesslike desk I might have seen in an office in Schlepsig. Two ordinary chairs sat in front of it. But so did piles of fringed and tasseled velvet cushions, for those who preferred to recline Hassocki-style.

Like his aerie, Essad Pasha himself was a mixture of modern East and ancient, unchanging West. He wore a dust-brown Hassocki uniform like my own; his had a major general’s two golden stars on each shoulder strap. He was about sixty, and built like a brick. I wouldn’t have cared to tangle with him, even if I had twenty years on him. His face was broad and square, with deep lines and a fierce mustache only now going gray. His pouchy, hooded eyes said he’d seen everything and done everything, and most of it hadn’t been worth seeing or doing. They said I wasn’t worth seeing, either. Max hadn’t been far wrong.

By his military grade, Essad Pasha outranked me. But I was of the blood royal-or he thought I was-and he wasn’t. He should have treated me the way he thought I deserved. When he just sat there, my blood, royal or not, started to boil. The emotion was ersatz, but it felt real. Would Prince Halim Eddin let an underling disrespect him so? Not likely! If I was Halim Eddin, would I?

“On thy feet, dog and son of a dog!” I roared. “Truly thy mother was a bitch, and thou knowest what that makes thee! Thinkest thou thy head shall not answer for thine accursed insolence?”

Now, Essad Pasha could have been rid of us with a snap of the fingers. All he had to do was say to the lieutenant, Kill them, and we were dead men. He could have, but he didn’t. It never once crossed his mind. As soon as I started shouting at him, the color drained from his ruddy face. I guess he hadn’t counted on getting a king who intended to be a king. Truly they say the Hassocki is either at your throat or at your feet.

His chair went over with a crash. He sprang upright, probably moving faster than he had in years. “Your-Your Highness!” he gabbled. “Forgive me, your Highness! North and south, east and west, I meant no harm, I meant no insult. Let the God look into my heart and see if I lie.”

“North and south, east and west, Essad Pasha, thou hast been too long in this far land,” I said. “Thou hast been a warrior, thou hast been a governor, but thou art not a king. Wert thou a king, didst thou purpose becoming a king, wouldst thou have summoned me?”

Even though I wasn’t flinging direct insults at him any more, I kept on using the second-person intimate, which was insulting all by itself to one who was neither a close friend nor a small child. I did it as if I had the right to do it. And because I did it that way, I won the right to do it.

I turned to Max. “Yildirim!” I said, giving him a Hassocki name on the spur of the moment. Maybe I was thinking of the first ship we rode, for it means thunderbolt. “Your sword, Yildirim!”

Out it came, the edge glittering. Once again, it did the trick. “Mercy, your Highness!” Essad Pasha wailed. “I abase myself before you, your Highness!” And may Eliphalet turn his back on me if the old bandit chief didn’t, going down first on his knees and then on his belly, bending his head and baring the nape of his neck. “Let your man strike now, by the God, if I mean to do you harm!”

Max took one loud, thumping step forward. “Your Highness?” he inquired, as if to say my will was the only thing in the world holding him back.

Executing the man who’d invited me-or rather, my double-here might have caused talk, especially when it would be for no more reason than that he stood up more slowly than he should have. On the other hand, the Hassocki respected shows of willful fury. I really could get used to this, I thought.

“Put up, Yildirim,” I said with a sigh, and his sword slid back into its sheath. I turned back to Essad Pasha. “Rise,” I told him. “You are forgiven-this time. There had better not be another.”

When he got to his feet, his face was the color of yogurt. Cold sweat beaded his forehead. He breathed in great, hitching gasps. He was used to putting others in fear; it must have been a long time since anyone turned the tables on him. “Truly-your Highness-is a lion-of righteousness,” he got out, a few words at each gasp.

I’d been lyin’ every inch of the way to get this far. But righteousness? Brother! “Be so good as to remember it henceforward,” I said. I hadn’t even been crowned yet, but I felt every inch a king.

I suggested to Essad Pasha that I review the Hassocki soldiers in Fushe-Kuqe. I didn’t suggest that I would turn Max loose on him if he said no. I let him figure that out for himself. He was a clever fellow; he could do all kinds of figuring for himself.

Gathering the troops together took a couple of hours. It shouldn’t have. Essad Pasha should have had them ready for me as soon as I stepped off the Gamemeno. I let him hear about that, too. He went pale again: not quite yogurt color, but about the shade of a man’s teeth after he’s smoked a pipe for fifty years. As long as I kept him worrying about things like his alleged discourtesy and unpreparedness, he wouldn’t think to worry about me. I hoped like blazes he wouldn’t, anyhow.

While we were waiting, he remarked, “I did not look for your Highness to be a man of such, ah, impetuous spirit.”

“Life is full of surprises,” I said, while Max suffered a coughing fit of truly epic proportions. What sort of man was the real Halim Eddin? A placid fool, someone Essad Pasha had expected to lead around by the nose? Someone who would reign over Shqiperi while Essad Pasha went right on ruling the Land of the Eagle?

Whatever he’d expected, he’d reckoned without Otto of Schlepsig. And, if Eliphalet and Zibeon were kind, he’d go right on reckoning without me, too.

After what seemed much too long, the lieutenant who’d led me here came back to Essad Pasha’s office to report that the men were drawn up in a square not far away. “About time,” I muttered, and Essad Pasha squirmed. I gave the lieutenant my fishiest, most carping stare. “Take me there, and be quick about it.”

“Y-Y-Yes, Your Highness.” The junior officer needed three tries before he got it out. He’d watched his ferocious boss crumble before me, and that was plenty to turn him from rock to sand.

As he led us toward this square, Max bent to murmur in my ear: “Do you know what the demon you’re doing?”

“Trust me,” I whispered back, which for some reason only set him coughing again.

“I fear your aide-de-camp may be consumptive, your Highness,” Essad Pasha said, looking up and up and up at Max.

“Oh, he consumes a good deal, being the size he is, but he’s worth it,” I answered blandly. Essad Pasha lifted his fez to scratch his head. Confusing him was almost as good as intimidating him.

Row upon row of soldiers in dust-brown uniforms, all stiff and straight, all with eyes front. A bugle blared out a flatulent note. “Salute the illustrious nephew of his Majesty, the Hassockian Atabeg!” Essad Pasha cried. His voice held a certain urgency. Do a good job, or you’ll watch my head bounce in the dirt. Someone once said, Nothing so concentrates the mind as the prospect of a six-foot-eight swordsman with an evil-tempered master. Perhaps I paraphrase, just a little.

“Highness!” the soldiers roared, all together: a great blast of sound.

Not even Halim Eddin could have found anything to complain about there, and so I didn’t. I strode forward and started the review. Max started coughing again. But here, for the first time since I got to Fushe-Kuqe, I really did know what I was doing. No, I’d never reviewed troops before. But I’d been reviewed, standing in those rigor-mortised ranks. Some of my reviews were less than flattering, too. This is bad in the theater. It’s worse in the army. Say what you will of the theater, but it has no dragonish platoon sergeants.

Now things were different. Now I was the one who went through the ranks making sure buttons were shiny and crossbow quarrels sharp. When I stopped in front of one man, I saw the poor fellow’s sergeant’s neck bulge, almost as if he were a cobra spreading its hood and getting ready to strike. And he would have struck, too, if I’d found anything wrong with the man’s gear or person.

But I didn’t. All I asked was, “Where are you from, soldier?”

“From outside a little town called Adapzari, Highness,” he answered, blinking to find that the likes of me could speak to the likes of him. “You won’t have heard of it, I’m sure.”

“I know Adapzari,” I said, and I did-I’d been stationed there. Even by Hassocki standards, the place is a dreadful hole, and Hassocki standards in such matters are exacting. I didn’t say that to this poor youngster. How could I, when he came from there and now found himself stuck in another dreadful hole? What I did do was wink and poke him in the ribs and ask, “Did you ever visit the Green Panther?”

His eyes lit up. “North and south, east and west, your Highness, you do know Adapzari!” he exclaimed. Then he went on, “I’ve been by the place, but I was never in it.” That didn’t surprise me. The Green Panther is the best joyhouse in Adapzari-not that that says much-and you need piasters in your pocket to get past the door. This poor fellow likely wouldn’t have had two coppers to rub together before he got sucked into the army.

I clapped him on the back. “When you go home again, you’ll have plenty to spend there.” Then I turned to that venomous-looking sergeant. “This man is a good soldier, yes?” I hoped he was. He looked too ordinary to be a shirker or a thief, but sometimes looks will let you down.

To my relief, the underofficer nodded. “He is, Highness,” he replied, and his neck shrank till it was hardly more than half again as thick as an ordinary mortal’s. He wouldn’t want to admit he had a shirker or a thief in his squad, either.

“Good. I’m glad to hear it. I’m sure part of the reason is that he has solid men set above him,” I said. The sergeant’s neck swelled again, but this time from pride rather than fury. I could tell because it didn’t turn so red.

Continuing on through the ranks, I stopped and talked with two or three other men. I didn’t find anything wrong with any of them. A reviewer who does that kind of thing has a cruel streak in him that I lack. Essad Pasha would have done it in a heartbeat, for sport.

I nodded to him when my inspection was done. “They’re fine men,” I said. “I’m sure I’ll get good use from them.”

“Your Highness?” he said doubtfully.

“Good use from them,” I repeated. I think Essad Pasha would have scratched his head again if he hadn’t been out there in front of the garrison. I looked at the soldiers-yes, at my soldiers. Some of them still stared straight ahead at nothing. But others had a gleam in their eye that hadn’t been there before. Prince Halim Eddin made a leader they would sooner follow than Essad Pasha.

Yes, I know this is like saying tastier than an oyster stew that’s gone bad. But think how downcast I would have been if they’d found me less inspiring than their current commander!

Essad Pasha sighed. “Well, your Highness, I am glad the soldiers are to your liking,” he said. “You may be right-you may get use from them after all. Considering Vlachia to the west, considering Belagora to the north, considering the wild Shqipetari of the mountains…Yes, you may indeed.”

More slowly than I should have, I realized he hadn’t just bought his wrinkles and lines in a shop in Fushe-Kuqe. He’d come by them as honestly as you can, from cares and worries. And he’d had plenty to worry about-and still did, for the Nekemte Wars dragged on here, and Belagoran troops were laying siege to Tremist, up in the north. They actually wanted a chunk of Shqiperi, which made them all but unique among the kingdoms of the earth. Not even the Shqipetari were enthusiastic about Shqiperi, or there wouldn’t have been so many of them living in Lokris.

But, such as it was, it was mine, and I aimed to keep it. Soldiers seemed a good start.

Once the review was over, Essad Pasha had his revenge on me. He proved himself a cruel, implacable Hassocki after all. No, he didn’t stake me out in the hot sun with trails of honey leading ants to my tender places. He didn’t sharpen a stake and stick it up my…Since he didn’t do that, I won’t go into detail about what he might have done. I don’t care to dwell on it.

No, his vengeance was subtler, more refined-and more vicious. After the review, Essad Pasha threw me to the scribes.

I wouldn’t have thought that particular breed of pest thrived in Shqiperi’s rugged, bracing climate. Few Shqipetari can read or write anything, let alone journals. Considering the way (or rather, ways, for there is no one standard school-yet another proof of lack of civilization) they spell their own barbarous jargon, it’s a wonder any of them can read or write at all.

But the vermin to whose tender mercies I was now exposed were foreigners embedded on the countryside-rather like ticks, as a matter of fact. Some had come to write stories proving the Hassocki were villains and monsters in the Nekemte Wars, and that the Belagorans, Vlachs, Lokrians, Plovdivians, and even Shqipetari were valiant, righteous heroes. Others-a smaller number-had come to write stories proving that the Belagorans, Vlachs, Lokrians, Plovdivians and Shqipetari were villains and monsters, and that the Hassocki were valiant, righteous heroes. A few freelancers had come to write stories that could go either way, depending on which journal decided to buy them.

A plump Albionese named Bob wore one of the most pathetic excuses for a wig I’ve ever had the misfortune to see, and on the stage and in the circus I’ve seen some astonishing specimens. He asked me whether I wasn’t ashamed to belong to such a bloodthirsty pack of murderers as the Hassocki. I was glad he gave me so much trouble figuring out which camp he belonged to.

He asked me, of course, in Albionese. The islanders expect everyone to speak their language, and never bother learning anyone else’s. Now, I do speak Albionese, but I had no reason to believe Essad Pasha did. I bought a little time by asking Bob to translate his question into Schlepsigian. If a Hassocki will speak any foreign language, that is the one.

But he couldn’t, to my not very great surprise. Someone did it for him. “Ah,” I said, as if understanding him for the first time. “No, I am proud to be what I am. Any man should be proud of his kingdom. I hope the Shqipetari will be proud of their kingdom once it finally comes into being-and of their king, too.”

Once that was translated into Albionese, Bob said, “How can they be proud of their king when you aren’t of their people?”

Again, waiting for his words to be turned into Schlepsigian gave me time to think. “Your King of Albion comes from a line that springs from a Schlepsigian principality, doesn’t he?” I answered. “I don’t hear of people rioting in the streets because of it.”

When Bob was made to understand, he exclaimed, “Oh, but that’s different,” by which he meant, That’s Albion. He had a point, of sorts. Albionese will put up with a good deal of nonsense that would cause street fighting in Narbonensis, revolution in Tver, and civil war in Lokris.

“May I ask you a question?” I said to him in Schlepsigian. Once he had that rendered into his language, he nodded. His jowls wobbled. So did his wig; he made as if to tug at his hair to settle it back in place. I had to betray a little knowledge of Albionese to ask, “How is it that you have your name? I thought a bob was the float they use in these newfangled privies.”

Bob the scribe turned very red. I had the feeling that question would not appear in whichever journal he worked for. His colleagues laughed loud and long. They hunt in packs, scribes do, but you can tell them from wolves because they’re the ones who will also turn and devour their own kind.

“How will the new kingdom look toward Torino?” a Torinan scribe asked in Schlepsigian. The two languages are as different as wine and sauerkraut, so his accent was fierce, but he made himself understood, which was more than blundering, blustering Bob could do.

I gave back my blandest smile. “Why, sir, I expect we will look east across the Tiberian Sea, and there it will be.”

That got me another laugh. If you can make scribes like you, half your battle is won-more than half, in fact. I learned that early on. They usually write what they feel, not what they think-just as well, since most of them are none too good at thinking anyhow. An evening telling jokes over coffee or brandy-over coffee and brandy, usually-will win you more good reviews than a sterling performance.

“But when you look across to Torino, what will you see?” this fellow persisted.

“A neighbor. A good neighbor, I hope,” I answered, bland still.

“Shqiperi stands between Vlachia and the sea,” a Schlepsigian scribe said, proving he could read a map. “How do you feel about keeping Vlachia from gaining ports?”

Good, I thought. But that might have proved impolitic-a pity, but true. What I did say was, “Shqipetari live in Shqiperi. Vlachs don’t.” That was mostly true. I added, “Quite a few Shqipetari live in Vlachia, though.” That was most definitely true. The province of Polje, in southern Vlachia, holds more Shqipetari than Vlachs.

This is curious, because the province of Polje is the next thing to sacred ground to the Vlachs. There, more than five hundred years ago, the Hassockian Atabeg crushed their army and brought them under Hassocki rule. If he’d slaughtered that army to the last man instead of leaving a few survivors, they would probably still reverence him instead of Eliphalet and Zibeon. Vlachs are peculiar people.

“How do you like being king?” that same scribe asked.

“I’m not king yet-I haven’t been crowned. I’m sure Essad Pasha, having kindly invited me here, is making arrangements for that now,” I said. Essad Pasha hastily nodded. His jowls wobbled when he did, but not nearly so much as those of Bob the Albionese. I went on, “Besides, if I’d stayed in Vyzance, I never would have become the Hassockian Atabeg. I get to start my own dynasty here.”

What was it like for the real Halim Eddin? There he was, in that ancient city, with his father’s older brother with a crown on his head. One of his first cousins would have it next. The only thing he would ever have was a mantle of suspicion. He was lucky he still had his father. Quite a few Hassockian Atabegs had massacred their brothers as soon as they claimed the throne. This was called not taking unnecessary chances. Maybe the present Atabeg was milder than some of his predecessors-though from what I knew of the old reptile, I doubted it. Maybe Halim Eddin’s father was too much of a rabbit to be dangerous.

Maybe I was spinning stories out of moonshine. I didn’t know the real Halim Eddin, and I hoped I never made his acquaintance.

That Schlepsigian scribe was persistent. He must have thought getting each day’s trivia down on paper mattered in the bigger scheme of things. We all have our illusions; who could get through life without them? “After you are crowned, what do you intend to do?” he inquired.

“Live happily ever after, and try to see that my subjects do, too,” I said.

That got me yet another laugh. Scribes are jaded. They mostly make their living off other people’s misfortunes. Someone living a long, quiet, prosperous life…Who could get a story out of that? But when there’s a battle or a flood or a scandal, you can talk about it for days-and then spend more days talking about what you’ve just talked about. And the wizards in the press room use the laws of similarity and contagion to run off sheets by the tens of thousands, sometimes till they fall over from weariness, and people in the street buy those copies as fast as they can.

I wonder if scribes aren’t related to vampires. They suck sorrows the way vampires suck blood. But garlic and roses won’t keep them away, and you can never drive a stake through a lying story’s heart.

“You will rule a small kingdom in a troubled part of the world,” another scribe said-he was looking for disaster even before it happened. “How will you keep your kingdom free?”

“North and south, east and west, the world is full of troubles,” I said, and the sorry old world has done nothing to prove me wrong in the years since, however much I wish it would. I also reminded them-and myself-that I followed the Quadrate God. “If troubles come here, I’ll do my best to drive them away. The Shqipetari love freedom. They will stand beside me.”

Most of the Shqipetari are entirely indifferent to freedom, save perhaps the freedom to plunder their neighbors. The Hassocki had ruled the region by holding the towns and killing anybody who got out of line. Not subtle, maybe, but more effective than any other way that’s been tried in those parts. Long ago, the Aeneans found the same recipe. It worked for them, too, for a while.

“Thank you very much, gentlemen,” I said. Two thousand years ago, some Aenean Emperor was probably telling his scribes the same thing. No doubt it meant then what it means now. Go away, you nuisances. You’ve bothered me long enough. The Aenean Emperor could have made heads roll if his scribes hadn’t listened to him. All at once, I realized I could do the same.

But my pack did go away. Life is full of disappointments. There are, I suppose, bigger ones. I suppose.

Where I watched the scribes go with a certain bloodthirsty regret, Essad Pasha knew nothing but relief as they headed down toward the Consolidated Crystal office. “You handled them very well, your Highness,” he said. “Better than I expected, in fact.”

“Oh?” I said, and the air around me got ten degrees colder. Maybe fifteen. Up went my left eyebrow. That expression looks like I’ve practiced it in the mirror. There’s a reason for that: I have. I’ve practiced it for a reason, too: it works. “And why is it better than you expected, your Excellency?”

He went pale again. Nice to know he was convinced I meant business. “Me-Me-Meaning no offense,” he finally got out. “But they-they are infidels and foreigners, out to trip you up.”

He wasn’t wrong, though they would have been just as ghoulishly gleeful to trip up a follower of the Two Prophets. I said, “If we Hassocki are not more clever than foreign infidels, the Quadrate God will not smile upon the four corners of our land.” By the way the Hassockian Empire has been shrinking for the past 250 years, the Quadrate God hasn’t smiled much lately. I forbore from mentioning that.

And Essad Pasha, out here in what had been the remotest corner of the Empire and now would have to sink or swim on its own, nodded till his jowl-wobbling really did rival Bob’s. “Every word a truth worthy to be inscribed in letters of gold,” he said. When the compliments turn flowery, you know you’ve got your man just where you want him.

Knowing that, I changed the subject: “When had you planned to hold the coronation ceremony?” Behind me, Max inhaled sharply and started to cough.

Not being acquainted with my comrade (save as someone who almost took his head: a limited and one-sided relationship), Essad Pasha didn’t know that meant Max thought I was getting onto thin ice. “Your Highness, I had thought to bring you into Peshkepiia in two or three days’ time for the ceremony, with perhaps a dragon hunt in the hills beforehand, if that should please you,” he said.

“A dragon hunt would please me well enough,” I said-not the smallest understatement of my career. There aren’t many places outside the Nekemte Peninsula-and not so many in it, not in these modern times-where you can hunt dragons in the wild. That the dragons are also hunting you adds a certain spice to the sport. But I couldn’t let Essad Pasha off easily, and so I asked, “Why the delay?”

Now he coughed, with a delicacy Max couldn’t have matched. “Please forgive me, your Highness, but it was only yesterday when I learned you were arriving. I confess to not yet having fully recruited the requisite royal harem.”

“The-royal harem?” I echoed, and Essad Pasha nodded. A pace behind me and a pace to my left, Max didn’t cough, but his breathing picked up. I said, “Well, in that case, your Excellency, I think the small delay may be excused.”

Essad Pasha bowed. “You are gracious.” His smile had a certain I-don’t-know-what about it. Well, actually, I do know what. It was a leer.

Now, harems are right out as far as followers of the Two Prophets go. Eliphalet had only one wife. Zibeon had only one wife. The Goddess is only one Wife. I don’t see how the rule could be any plainer than that. Rule or no rule, though, my coreligionists have been doing what they wanted to do and what they thought they could get away with doing for a good many years-or should I say a good many centuries?

If I’d spoken to a prelate, I think I could have got a dispensation. I was, after all, impersonating a personage who followed the Quadrate God. His followers have silly, cumbersome rules of their own, but not about wives. Their only rule there is if they can afford it, they can do it-and do it, and do it, and do it.

To this very day, the Hassockian Atabeg’s harem is legendary for the beauty and variety of its inhabitants. Every so often, some madman inflamed by lust will try to sneak in. The Hassocki don’t kill such adventurers when they catch them. No, indeed. They let them go-minus a few important bits. Nobody tries to sneak into the harem more than once.

I didn’t suppose Essad Pasha could find me that sort of quality in this backwoods excuse for a kingdom. But I did want to make sure he would be diligent. “I look forward to, ah, evaluating the recruits,” I said.

“I shall do everything I can to give satisfaction, your Highness. And so will the girls, I assure you.” Yes, Essad Pasha definitely leered.

“You lucky bastard,” Max hissed when the erstwhile governor of Shqiperi turned away. My mother and father were married. To each other, in fact. Except for that, I wasn’t inclined to argue with him.