Myth-Chief

TWELVE

The first client to walk in the door. I sat at my desk, drumming my fingertips. I was still kind of smarting from the confrontation but more determined to succeed than I could ever remember. So much was at stake: my reputation, my friendship—especially my pride. Gleep lay on the floor with his chin on my lap. He rolled his big blue eyes up toward me. I scratched his ears with my fingertips.

"What if the client doesn't have the kind of problem that can be solved with money?" I asked Bunny, who stood holding up the door frame with her hip. She wrinkled her upturned nose at me.

"Really, Skeeve, how many people would that cover? Most problems have something to do with money in the long run. I'll be fair. If it really is something nonfinancial, I'll wave them off for now. Otherwise, you take what I give you. The same goes for Aahz."

"We'll see to it that he sticks to the terms, what?" Chumley said. He and Nunzio had moved a couple of

chairs from the waiting room into my office to keep me company. "Little sister is sitting with Aahz to ensure his compliance. Should be an interesting competition, eh?" Interesting. I shrugged.

"What about some three-handed Demon Pinochle to pass the time?" Nunzio asked in his high voice.

"Thanks, but I couldn't concentrate," I said.

"Oh, don't fret, Skeeve," Chumley said. "We're all rooting for you, you know."

I brightened. "You want me to win9"

After Aahz had left, I spent a lot of time trying to reconstruct our conversation. It was a muddle, i should have known better than to drink more than one glass of wine— but it had been so easy to fall back into bad habits—like going along with whatever Aahz wanted. I had been very nervous about what the others thought about the contest. When Aahz showed up at our tent flap this morning, most of my old friends had been with him. They'd agreed who would stay with each of us. and offer help or just observe. I realized too late that they all had plenty riding on the outcome of our competition, but was relieved that they didn't seem to mind that the challenge had been offered.

Chumley shook a linger at me.

"I say I'm not committing to a victor in this contest. You and Aahz made the terms: who wins, wins. My friendship is still yours. I do not mind either way as long as the contest is fairly run and fairly won. If you succeed, I know what to expect after years as your partner. I would not cavil at a return to those days—with some exceptions, of course."

"Of course," I echoed.

"If Aahz wins, then there may be some changes because he has a different way of doing business, but I don't think it is incompatible with our previous customs."

"Maybe not." I sighed. "I guess I never really admitted to myself that I wanted to be in charge again when I came back. I suppose that's because I didn't know where else I would fit in the organization."

"Don't sell yourself short, Boss," Nunzio squeaked. Gleep moved his chin from my lap to Nunzio's and made a hopeful noise. The Mob enforcer had a way of scratching my dragon's ears that made him purr like a cat. "You'd do tine. You always called us partners. I mean, then you should have no trouble no matter what happens."

"Yeah," I said. "I guess so."

That pretty much summed up my mental geography lesson, I had to figure out where I really fit, whether I won this bet or not, and if I really meant it when I called them all my partners.

I heard a murmur from the front room, then Bunny raised her voice.

"Of course, Princess Hermalaya. I'll show you in to Mr. Skeeve's office."

A princess! If that wasn't a big-ticket case, I didn't know what was. I shot to my feet. Chumley followed suit somewhat more slowly for the sake of the furniture and the ceiling, which was a trifle low for someone of his stature.

"Okay, Boss," Nunzio said, standing up and straightening his knife-sharp lapels, "it's showtime!"

Bunny held open the carpet and an elegant creature sashayed into the room. She had long white fur from

muzzle to the black tip of her bushy tail. She unwrapped a silken stole from around her slender shoulders and presented me with a long, slim hand.

"Hi, there," she said. "The kindly lady there in the office told me you might be able to help?"

"That's what we do here," I said, bowing gallantly over her hand. "May I introduce myself? I'm Skeeve. These are my associates, Nunzio and Chumley."

"Well, I'm charmed," the lovely lady said. "I'll just return the favor? I'm Hermalaya, princess of Foxe-Swampburg in the dimension of Reynardo—or I was?"

I raised my eyebrows. "Welcome. Will you sit down and tell us all about it?"

"Well," Hermalaya said, breathlessly, sinking into the client chair, "I shoulda known that something was gonna happen after Mama and Daddy died. I'm the firstborn in my family, so of course they put me on the throne. We're the oldest family in Foxe-Swampburg, the first Swamp Foxes to put down roots there? I'm proud of my heritage, and I love my people. One thing Daddy always told me was trust the folks who know what they're doing? So I did. We got a real smart prime minister and a bunch of other people who ran things for Daddy? I just left everything in their hands. My subjects came to me when they had troubles. I passed them along to the prime minister? 'Cause I don't have a whole lot of experience yet? I learned other things suitable for a princess, of course. I'm a good listener. I'm a pretty darned good cook. I mean, sooner or later I gotta think about ensuring the succession, so I want to get married and have kits? But in the meantime, I'm trying to catch on to what's going on? Except I just didn't have a chance?"

"Why not?" I asked.

Hermalaya acquired an indignant pout.

"Well, because that darned prime minister just up and usurped me last week!"

I frowned. "He threw you off the throne? Why?"

The Swamp Fox princess shook her head in bemusement. "Well, I'm sure I don't know. We had us some hard times in Foxe-Swampburg, that's for sure. We had these nasty bugs? They were just everywhere, and we couldn't get rid of them. They bored holes through everything? I mean, my subjects were just going broke trying to fix things. The cisterns all sprang leaks, and people were running out of clean water? So I told the chancellor of the exchequer to open up the treasury? I mean, we all woulda been bored full of holes, too, if it wasn't for the Old Folks protecting us."

"I know what you mean" I said, as a Humbee buzzed over our heads like a vulture swooping down. Gleep made a leap for it and settled down to chew noisily. Hermalaya stared in amazement at the invasion and capture. I cleared my throat. "Uh, please go on."

"Well, not much to tell, except I tried to help my people, because that's what I'm supposed to do? Mama and Daddy always instilled in us the deepest sense of responsibility toward those who depend upon us."

"Most admirable," Chumley said, then lowered his heavy brow as Hermalaya turned to stare at him. "Big Crunch mean, 'good foxy'!"

I frowned. "So what do you need from us? We're not an army."

"Well, what do you think?" Hermalaya asked. "My people need me. They can't just have an old prime minister as their leader? You can see what kind of chaos that would lead to. I mean, how can he make unpopular decisions if there's no one for them to love when he's being mean? He's got no one to explain to the people in a friendly way that that's the way it's got to be. Of course," she added reflectively, "I mean unpopular decisions that don't involve bouncin' his lawful monarch out the door? Mister Skeeve, I'd be just as grateful as possible if you would help me get my throne back!"

"Well, ma'am," I said. "You know our reputation, or you wouldn't have come to M.Y.T.H., Inc. We'd love to help you, but our assistance doesn't come cheap. Uh, it's awkward, but can you handle our fees?"

Hermalaya looked crestfallen. "Well, that's the trouble, you know. I just don't have any money. I have heard of you all, and one of the things that people told me? Sometimes you come in and help for the sake of helping?"

I winced. Just when I needed to find a way to score a lot of coins from a client, our reputation for occasional altruism came out. But, wait—Bunny promised that she would not send me a client with whom it would be impossible to win the contest I had going with Aahz. If I trusted anyone in the world, it had to be her. For the life of me, at that moment I couldn't see how I could turn this one around.

I sighed and put my chin on my palm. "Tell me some more. Maybe we can figure something out. Why did it happen?"

"Well," Hermalaya said, "that of prime minister—his name's Matfany, by the way—he's been pretty good at explaining things to me most of the time. But when he found out I had the chancellor of the exchequer hand out a lot of our money to those poor people who lost everything to the bugs, he just lost his mind!"

"Literally?" Nunzio asked, with interest.

"Not exactly right out of his head," Hermalaya admitted. "But it was a pretty darned mean thing to do. He marched into my rooms one day, and he didn't even look at me. Normally he looks at me. A lot. But that day, he just couldn't. He said that he had just talked to the chancellor. The treasury was empty, and it was all my fault. He said I didn't have a right to hand out the money. That by just giving it out to anybody I was endangering the kingdom? Being broke leaves Foxe-Swampburg vulnerable to anybody who wants to invade it? Or have our creditors come in and claim just every little thing we have. That'd make us—what did he call it?—a client state instead of a free principality? I had gone against everything that my daddy and his ancestors had ever done to keep us from being taken over by enemies or revenuers. Matfany said he wasn't going to let Foxe-Swampburg fall like that? He said that he didn't have a choice? He was gonna have to toss me out of the kingdom for the good of everyone. Now I thought that I was acting for the good of everyone. I've been their princess all my life, and I have never done a single thing that was against them, I swear."

"I'm sure you didn't," I said, sympathetically.

"It was just so hurtful, all the things he said. He accused me of sitting around all day eating Cake! Now, look at me," she said, displaying her svelte figure with indignant pride. "Do I look like I do nothing but eat Cake?"

"Cake?" I asked. "What kind of cake?"

"Not cake, Cake."

Even I could hear the capital C in Cake. I guessed it was a local delicacy. "And then what?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, and then he condemned me to death," Hermalaya added.

"He did WHAT?" I jumped out of my seat.

Hermalaya waved a hand. "Oh, yes, and he said he didn't have a choice about that, either? For the good of the kingdom I had to go into exile? If I could just return freely anytime I felt like it, then anything he tried to do to bring Foxe-Swampburg back into prosperity could just be undone. So I and anyone who was caught with me back in my very own homeland was subject to a death sentence. He sent all of my pages and my ladies-in-waiting home to their mamas. He didn't give me more than an hour to get my bags packed? Then he had a whole troop of guards escort me over the border? They weren't any help at all. I've never seen such discourtesy. I had to hike all the way to the next town before I could get a ride to the archduke who lives next door. He's a nice fellow. He had his royal wizard transport me here. He said you folks were the best there was at solving problems. So, here I am, all alone in this world."

I pounded my fist into my palm. "Well, we're going to help you."

Hermalaya fluttered her long eyelashes at me. "I'd be so grateful?"

"Seems to me we have three problems," Nunzio said, ticking them off on his fingers. "One: you've got a usurper who took over and has at least some popular support because royalty's generally carried forward by inertia. It has to take something drastic before the people want to throw them out, so some of 'em aren't gonna want her back. Second: you've got the money angle. Foxe-Swampburg is in the hole. Putting Princess Hermalaya back isn't gonna solve that. You're just changing a finance guy for a figure-head, one who by her own admission has no talent for fund-raising. The prime minister is going to be in a better position to pay our fee than she is. The kingdom might need him more than they need her." "True," I groaned. "Third?"

"Third is lack of interest from anyone to step in and help. Foxe-Swampburg's just a backwater. To be honest, Boss, deposed royalty is a dime a silver coin. We've had plenty of tin-pot kings come knocking on the door looking for help. What she needs are powerful allies to lean on Matfany to bring her back. I think the kingdom's creditors would be the best prospects, but I wouldn't sneeze at influential monarchs who have an army at hand, but what's their motivation? You can't get people to listen without a more interesting story of some kind. Something that sets them apart from all the other hereditary officeholders whose constituency tossed them out. You need an angle that sets her apart."

An angle. I eyed Hermalaya. She was all graceful curves and big sad eyes. Nunzio was right. I'd had my share of former monarchs, oligarchs, and despots come to my new office who wanted me to put them back where they belonged. I had been grateful to say that that wasn't what I did. I did not send them to M.Y.T.H., Inc. By the same token, I would probably have sent Hermalaya away if Bunny had not assigned her to me.

"Tell me about the Cake you're supposed to have been eating," I asked, desperate to change tack. "How is that different from the fluffy stuff with frosting?"

"You're a Klahd," she said, but it wasn't with the usual scorn. "You don't know anything about the Way of Cake.

It's a holy ceremony in Reynardo, with many centuries of history behind it. I have been a practitioner since I was a little kit. My mommy had me initiated. Why, I've been serving Cake since I could only handle Cupcakes. The Way has made my life so much better than it would have been. I find peace and fulfillment in the ceremony."

"Really?" I asked. I had the beginning of an idea. If I knew something about the culture, I could formulate a way to help her. "May I... experience the Way of Cake?

"If you have any reason to think it will help me to regain my throne," Hermalaya said. She sounded doubtful.

"What do you need, your highness?" Nunzio asked, "We can get almost anything right here in the Bazaar."

"Why, thank you," she said, favoring him with a delightful smile that made me wish I had been the recipient instead. "I'll make you a list. Has anyone got a little old piece of parchment?"