Every Inch a King

XVI

Thethi, Dashmani, Shala, Ragova, Kiri, Toplana. Yes, my minister for special affairs and I stayed busy that third night. And either Zogu was an even better wizard than he claimed to be or we were even better men than we thought ourselves to be, for we had no trouble keeping up our end of the bargain, you might say.

From certain encounters I have had since, I am inclined to give the wizardry at least some of the credit. Max will tell you he would have done as well if we’d never heard of Zogu. But then, Max will tell you any number of things. Some of them almost anyone can believe without seriously endangering himself. Others, however, should be heard only after consulting a physician, and are definitely unsafe for invalids and those in delicate health.

At last, after our strenuous efforts to establish friendly relations with the locals were crowned with success, I sent the girls back to the harem. Once Skander and Rexhep led them down the hallway, I let Max out of the closet again.

“You see?” I told him. “You can get away with anything, as long as you put up a bold enough front.”

“We’re not dead yet, so you must be right,” he answered. “I wouldn’t have believed it. When the Atabeg said you weren’t who you said you were, I thought for sure they’d tear us to pieces.”

I shrugged. “Essad Pasha doesn’t dare believe I’m not Halim Eddin. If he did, he would have to believe he was a fool. Nobody wants to do that.”

“Even so, we’re not out of the woods,” Max said. “Some of Essad Pasha’s officers may decide he’s a fool, whether he thinks so or not. And if they do…” He made a horrid gurgling noise.

“How can you sound so gloomy after what we’ve just been doing?” I asked.

“I’d like to stay able to do it,” Max said. “You were the one who talked about losing bits and pieces of ourselves if things went wrong.”

“Nothing will go wrong,” I assured him. “You’ll see in the morning. Why don’t you head back to your room and get some sleep? After tonight, after the last three nights, you ought to sleep like a baby-a tall baby, but a baby even so.”

“I don’t want to sleep like a baby. Piddling in the bed and spitting up? Thanks, but I’d rather not.”

I shoved him out the door. “Go on. You’re lucky I’m a kind and merciful king, or I’d give you what you deserve for that. Everything will be fine in the morning. You’ll find out.”

But everything wasn’t fine in the morning. I found out. And I very nearly was found out. It happened like this.

Trouble usually strikes at the most inconvenient times, when you’ve shaved half your face or just stepped out of the tub or told her that of course you weren’t married. Here, though, everything seemed fine. I’d drunk my coffee. I’d eaten my fried mush. I thought I was ready to park my fundament on the throne again and act royal. I even thought I was getting pretty good at it.

Skander came up to me and bowed. “Excuse me, your Majesty, but Colonel Kemal and Major Mustafa are here to see you.”

“Are they?” I said innocently. I don’t know if I’d convinced Max everything was fine. Max is not easy to convince of such things. I do know I’d convinced myself. “Well, I’d be glad to see them.”

There I sat, on the throne, happy and kingly, Max standing a step back and to the left, where he belonged. There they came, two of Essad Pasha’s officers in dust-brown uniforms. Neither of them had missed a meal any time lately. Major Mustafa had a big black mustache. Colonel Kemal had an even bigger gray one. Major Mustafa’s fez and shoulder straps had one jewel. Colonel Kemal’s had three.

They didn’t bow. They didn’t say, “Your Majesty.” They just looked at me, not quite as if they’d found half of me in their apple but as if they’d like to give me to a Shqipetari cook for some intimate acquaintance with hot grease.

I did my best not to notice. To tell you the truth, I didn’t want to notice. I said, “Gentlemen, it’s good that you’re here”-which only shows how much I knew. “Tell me your specialties. I’ll want to get the best use out of you when the fighting with Belagora heats up.”

They just kept staring at me. After a little while, I started not to like that very much. At last, Major Mustafa said, “How can you be who you say you are when the Atabeg says you aren’t who you say you are?”

I waited for Max to cough. He didn’t bother. He evidently figured I could see this was trouble all by myself. Max is so trusting. “You must not have heard. I explained that to Essad Pasha just yesterday,” I told the officers, and went through my song and dance again. Really, I should have had an orchestra accompanying me. I finished, “So you see, all this silly fuss should die down in a few days,” and waited for the applause from my adoring audience.

Only it wasn’t adoring. If the major and the colonel were carrying rotten rutabagas, they would have thrown them. Since they didn’t, they contented themselves with shaking their heads. They were out of synch with each other, which struck me as most unmilitary. Major Mustafa said, “We did hear that yesterday.”

“We don’t believe it,” Colonel Kemal said.

“The Hassockian Atabeg would never sully himself by telling a lie,” Mustafa declared.

I almost had a laughing fit, right there on the throne. There hasn’t been a Hassockian Atabeg for the past five hundred years who wasn’t a lying reptile. It’s essential for living long enough to get halfway good at the job. And I couldn’t tell them so. If I did, they would decide I was insulting their sovereign, and I couldn’t possibly be the lying reptile’s nephew.

I was, plainly, going to have to be a lying reptile myself. Well, if working for Dooger and Cark prepared me for anything, it prepared me for that. I rose from the throne, a smile still on my face. “Gentlemen, I have to tell you you are mistaken,” I said. Or at least right for the wrong reasons. “Let’s talk about it, shall we? Captain Yildirim, why don’t you come along with us?”

“Yes, your Majesty.” Max had to be wondering if I wanted him to murder the two Hassocki. I don’t blame him; I was wondering the same thing myself.

We ambled through the palace. I went on explaining how I really was Halim Eddin and always had been, even as a small child, although the lying reptile in Vyzance (whom I couldn’t call a lying reptile) couldn’t admit it. Colonel Kemal and Major Mustafa went on not believing me. I started to get angry, though I didn’t let it show. Anyone would have thought from their attitude that I was deliberately lying to them!

In due course, we reached the front entrance. The soldiers standing guard there sprang to stiff attention. Whoever was in charge of them seemed imperfectly trustful of my popularity; he’d posted a couple of squads’ worth of men there to protect me from my beloved people. “At ease,” I told them.

“Yes, your Majesty,” they chorused, and relaxed from their brace.

They thought I was King of Shqiperi. And if they did…“Men,” I said, “arrest these officers! They plot to remove me from the throne!”

It was as easy as that. The soldiers seized Colonel Kemal and Major Mustafa. After a moment’s shocked paralysis, the officers raised a horrible fuss. It did them exactly no good. A king outtrumped a major and a colonel put together. “What shall we do with ’em, your Majesty?” a sergeant asked once the loyal dimwits, uh, soldiers had laid hold of Kemal and Mustafa.

“Take them to the dungeons,” I said grandly. Kemal and Mustafa cursed and moaned even louder than they had before. I paid no attention to them. To my vast relief, neither did the palace guards.

“Uh, your Majesty, where are the dungeons?” the sergeant asked: a reasonable question, under the circumstances.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “They’re in there somewhere, I suppose-how can you have a palace if you don’t have dungeons?-but I just got here myself. I haven’t found ’em yet.” I went back to the doorway and shouted down the hall: “Skander!”

“Yes, your Majesty?” I don’t know how he kept appearing out of nowhere like that, but he did. Maybe Zogu had something to do with it.

“We have a couple of gentlemen here who require incarceration,” I said. Colonel Kemal and Major Mustafa vehemently denied it. Skander didn’t listen to them, either. “Noisy, aren’t they?” I remarked. “Would you be so kind as to show the soldiers to the dungeons so they can lock these rascals up? I hope the doors are thick-that way, their racket won’t bother anyone else.”

“The doors are very thick indeed, your Majesty,” Skander said. He nodded to the sergeant. “Come this way, if you please.” Mustafa and Kemal did their best not to go that way. Their best wasn’t good enough. I don’t believe the soldiers did anything in persuading them that wouldn’t heal in a few days.

All the palace guards trooped along with the loud, boisterous officers. The more Kemal and Mustafa tried to fight, the more men joined in to make sure they couldn’t. Max and I stood by ourselves at the entrance. “Well,” I said brightly, “that was interesting.”

“There’s one word,” Max said. He used several others, most of which would set the page on fire if I tried to write them down.

“Did I get out of it or not?” I asked him. “Did I get away with it or not?”

He didn’t want to say I had, but he couldn’t very well say I hadn’t. “You’ve got the balls of a burglar,” was what he did say, “and if you don’t watch out, you’ll get ’em chopped off just like Rexhep.”

“Oh, rubbish,” I said, and hoped like anything it was.

When the guardsmen came back, it was without Colonel Kemal and Major Mustafa. The sergeant didn’t look happy. “Whoever designed those dungeons didn’t know what he was doing. No dripping water, no bad smells…I didn’t see a single rat. North and south, east and west, there are hardly any cockroaches, even.”

“They’ll have to do for now,” I said. “Later on, maybe, we’ll fix up something properly nasty.”

“I should hope so!” he said. “Back in Vyzance, now, you’ll be used to doing it right. Filth, vermin, water, gloom, easy access for the torturers…They don’t fool around back there.” If I ever did decide to renovate my dungeons, here was a man with ideas.

I had an idea of my own. It turned out not to be a good idea, but I couldn’t know that when I had it. “Come with me,” I said to Max. “The people of Peshkepiia should get to know us. Let’s go to the market square and see them at their earnest endeavors.” Yes, Let’s watch the quaint natives was what it boiled down to. I should have known better, even then. Shqipetari are too confounded ornery to be quaint.

Not that a Shqipetar gave me trouble. Oh, no. But I’m getting to that.

If a Schlepsigian public-health mage got a look at the market square in Peshkepiia, he would close it down on the spot, fall over dead from a fit of apoplexy, or more likely both. Flies buzzed everywhere. They settled on meat and vegetables and stallkeepers and customers. Sewage ran in the gutters and puddled here and there, which helped account for the flies. Consumptive beggars held out bowls and coughed on passersby.

Another difference between civilization and Shqiperi that I’ve already noted is, people were haggling wherever you looked. When I went on the road, I needed a while to understand this. In Schlepsig, there is a price. That is the price. The seller tells you what it is. You pay, or you don’t. This is the natural way, the sensible way, to do business.

It’s not the way they do business in the Nekemte Peninsula. There is no deal in those parts without a dicker. The seller would be offended if you took his first offer. He would think you despised him, or he would think he set his price much too low. Since no one ever takes a first offer, his honor and his sense of his own cleverness meet no danger.

In Shqiperi, where every man usually carries as many weapons as he can afford and as many as he can wear and still walk, dickering takes on a whole new dimension. A bargainer will think nothing of drawing a dagger or swinging a sword or letting the flat of an axe blade crash down on a tabletop. Shqipetari treat a haggle like the prelude to a blood feud. Every now and then, it is.

So when Max and I saw-and heard-a knot of shouting, gesticulating people in the market square, we didn’t think much of it, not at first. Shqipetari shout and gesticulate as naturally as Schlepsigians take orders. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything; it’s just part of who they are. It doesn’t necessarily not mean anything, either, though, as I was about to discover.

In fact, Max, being so uncouthly tall, discovered it before I did. He could peer over the crowd and discover why it was a crowd. I had to peer through people, which is harder; they refuse to go transparent when you most want them to.

“Uh, your Majesty, we have a problem here,” he said.

“What kind of problem?” I asked. The Shqipetari not only stubbornly stayed opaque but got more excited by the minute. And they said it couldn’t be done!

“You know the emblem of this kingdom?” Now Max, Eliphalet bless his pointed little head, was being opaque, too.

I thought of the bicephalous eagle (made in Albion) tacked up behind my makeshift throne. “Personally, no,” I answered, but I was wrong.

Max proceeded to point this out: “If that emblem were a man, he’d be in the middle of that crowd right now.”

A horrid suspicion ran through me. “Tell me anything you please, O most excellent Minister for Special Affairs, anything at all. But north and south, east and west”-even in my extremity, I did remember not to swear by the Two Prophets-“tell me that’s not Josй-Diego in there.”

But it was, or they were, depending on how you look at things. Dooger and Cark’s flyers went right on showing a two-headed man, even though we didn’t have one in the company any more. Josй-Diego was the one we didn’t have any more. The reason we didn’t have him-them?-any more was that the two heads couldn’t get along with each other, not even a little bit, which meant he, or they, didn’t have an act.

I finally got my own glimpse of him, them, whatever. He, they, whatever, hadn’t changed a bit since the last time I saw him/them. Josй, the right-hand head, wore a full beard. Because he did, Diego was clean-shaven. Diego, the left-hand head, let his curly brown hair fall almost to his shoulders-I mean, shoulder. Because he did, Josй shaved his scalp. Just to make matters worse, Josй controlled their left arm and leg, Diego their right, and not the other way around. Sometimes they-he?-couldn’t even walk, because the right leg didn’t know what the left leg was doing.

It gets worse. Josй was a reactionary. Diego was a radical. Josй ate meat-adored it. Diego was a vegetarian. Josй liked girls. Diego liked boys. Whether they ever managed to make like lucky Pierre, I’m afraid-or rather, glad-I can’t tell you.

And it gets even worse than that, because Josй-Diego saw me, too. Actually, I suspect Josй-Diego saw Max first. Max is almost as noticeable as Josй-Diego, and under some circumstances even more so. And after the two-headed man spotted Max, he didn’t need long to spot me with him. He waved to us and headed our way.

That was about as bad as it could get. He knew we were Otto of Schlepsig and Max of Witte. He didn’t know we were supposed to be King Halim Eddin and his more or less faithful aide-de-camp, Captain Yildirim. He knew we followed the Two Prophets. Josй followed them, too, with the fanatical devotion of most Leonese. Diego was a freethinker. Neither of them knew we were affecting to reverence the Quadrate God. Even if for different reasons, they both would have been appalled.

Giving Josй and Diego something to agree about was not what I had in mind.

“What are you fellowth doing in thith Prophetth-forthaken plathe?” Diego asked. Yeth, uh, yes, he talked like that. No, he wasn’t being effeminate. Josй spoke Schlepsigian with the same lisping Leonese accent. Josй was a lot of things, starting with bad-tempered fool and rapidly going downhill from there, but no one would ever accuse him of effeminacy.

Max did his best to tip Josй-Diego off to what we were doing. Drawing himself up to his full height-which takes a lot of drawing-he spoke in severe tones: “Have a care how you address Halim Eddin, King of Shqiperi.”

That got both heads’ attention, but not in the way we wanted. “Whose leg are you pulling, Max?” Josй asked. I’m not going to write the lisp any more. I’m just not. But it was there. You can hear it in your mind’s eye, if you want to, or see it in your ear.

“Otto’s no more a king than I am,” Diego added.

“You’re no king. You’re a cursed queen,” Josй said. I told you they didn’t get along.

They switched from Schlepsigian to Leonese about then. I don’t really speak Leonese, but I do speak Narbonese and Torinan, which are its cousins, so I can follow it after a fashion. Diego said something rude about Josй’s mother, which is strange, since she was Diego’s mother, too. Josй said something very rude about the only kind of meat Diego ate. Diego screeched and tried to hit him. Josй blocked the punch.

The crowd watched in fascination. As long as the two heads were shouting at each other-as long as Josй-Diego was shouting at himself?-in Leonese, everything was fine, or near enough. Hardly any Shqipetari understand it. But if and when Josй-Diego went back to Schlepsigian, all my troubles came back, too. Even in Peshkepiia, which is every bit as Prophets-forsaken as Josй-Diego said (why else would he, or they, have ended up there?), quite a few people know Schlepsigian, the language of Culture.

Josй stamped on Diego’s foot. That didn’t do either one of them any good, since they both felt it. They howled the polyglot curses anyone who’s done time in a circus uses.

Josй did go back to Schlepsigian, and I felt like cursing him. “Seriously, Otto, what are you doing here?” he asked.

And then, at my elbow, someone spoke to me in Hassocki: “Excuse me, your Majesty, but is this, uh, person bothering you?”

May I turn into a Shqipetar if it wasn’t the sergeant of the guard. He and his men had put Mustafa and Kemal away, and then they’d come after me to make sure I was all right. Such devotion is touching; it almost made me wish I really were Halim Eddin. “He’s…getting there,” I answered. “Tell me-do you or any of your men speak Schlepsigian?”

“No, your Majesty,” the sergeant said. “I’m sorry, your Majesty.”

“Don’t be,” I told him.

Josй-Diego gave me two suspicious stares. “What are you yattering about, Otto?” Josй said irritably. It wasn’t just Diego he couldn’t get along with; he had trouble with the whole world. “Talk a language a thivilithed man can underthtand.”

“He’th going to thcrew uth,” Diego thaid-uh, said. I said I wouldn’t do that any more, didn’t I? Well, I’m trying. “He’s going to screw us to the wall.” There, that’s better.

And I did aim to screw them to the wall, too. I’ll tell you something else-I enjoyed doing it metaphorically much more than I would have enjoyed it physically. I nodded to the sergeant. “This fellow is a troublemaker, I’m afraid. Why don’t you take him, uh, them, to the dungeon to cool down for a while?”

“Yes, your Majesty!” All at once, the sergeant sounded enthusiastic. He nodded to his troopers. “Grab the monster, boys!” I have no doubt that members of the Society for the Advancement of the Rights of Individuals with Multiple Necks will be distressed by the crudity, prejudice, and discriminatory nature of his language, and I apologize for the infliction of any such distress. I do not editorialize here; I merely report.

Apparently untroubled by higher feelings of brotherhood, the Hassocki soldiers grabbed the monster. Josй-Diego tried to fight back. In less time than it takes to tell, he-they-had three black eyes and two bloody noses. If it wasn’t pretty obvious that I wouldn’t have approved, he would have lost two heads.

“For Eliphalet’s sake, Otto, call the authorities!” Josй howled.

“You don’t seem to understand. I am the authorities,” I said, and then, to the sergeant, “Take him away!” If you’re going to be a tyrant, be a tyrant!

“Yes, your Majesty!” Away Josй-Diego went. He was still making a dreadful racket. Fortunately, he was doing most of it in Leonese, which the bystanders couldn’t follow. Now that I look back on it, that might have been lucky for him as well as for me. If they had understood some of the things he was calling them, he might not have made it to the dungeon.

“Keep him away from Mustafa and Kemal,” I called after the soldiers. “They don’t need to listen to his ravings.” Could you hold a two-headed man in solitary confinement? A nice grammatical and philosophical question, isn’t it?

The sergeant waved to show he heard me. I wasn’t sure whether the Hassocki officers spoke Schlepsigian. I wouldn’t have been surprised, though. If they did, they would have found out some things I didn’t want them knowing. They would have been able to tell the palace guards about them, too. That could have proved…awkward.

As things were, Take him away! worked just fine. No wonder tyrants enjoy being tyrannical. Not many bigger thrills than telling people what to do and actually having them do it. Some, yes (I wondered if Zogu’s aphrodisiac preparation was good for one more night), but not many.

The market square slowly went back to normal-which is to say, dull. I turned to Max. “Well, I’m glad that’s over with,” I said. “We don’t want any more two-faced dealing around here.”

My esteemed minister for special affairs looked revolted if not outright rebellious. But he said, “I guess you did about as well with that as you could. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “Josй-Diego is out of his mind-minds-even when he’s in sight.”

Max didn’t try to tell me I was wrong-a good thing, since I was right. “I wonder what he was doing in Peshkepiia,” he said.

I shrugged. “This is a place for losers. Where else would somebody like Josй-Diego show up?” There aren’t many like him-and a good thing, too, I say.

“What are we doing here, in that case?” Max inquired.

“Don’t be difficult,” I told him. “I’ll say this-what we’re doing here is a lot more profitable than haggling for vegetables in the market square. More fun, too. By tonight we’ll have tried out the whole harem.”

“A point,” Max said. When Max doesn’t argue, you know it’s a good point, too.

Peshkepiia, royal harem and royal treasury excepted, was rapidly running out of good points. Chief among the not so good points was the Consolidated Crystal office. Given any encouragement from me, Max would have haunted the place like a jilted ghost in one of those castles on the crags above the river that are so beloved of Schlepsigian romance-writers of the female persuasion.

Even without encouragement from me, the intrepid Captain Yildirim went back to the CC office. When he returned to the market square, his face was longer than the road between Dooger and Cark’s and a good circus.

“Well, what is it this time?” I asked. Maybe if he got it out of his system all at once, as if from a purgative…

“It’s the Hassockian Atabeg, that’s what,” said my minister for special affairs. “Really bellowing like an angry dragon now. He says the fellow who has the unmitigated gall to pretend to be his Highness, Prince Halim Eddin, should get exactly what he deserves, and another twenty piasters’ worth besides.”

Now, I’ve always thought of my gall as being on the mitigated side. “Twenty piasters piled together aren’t worth a good Schlepsigian kram,” I said.

Somehow, this observation failed to calm Max. “That still leaves you getting what you deserve,” he said. “It leaves me getting what you deserve, too, for which I thank you so very much. What the Atabeg thinks you deserve would keep a team of torturers busy for weeks.”

“You’ve been getting what I deserve the past three nights, too, or half of it, anyway,” I said. “When you thank me for that, you can sound like you mean it.”

Max ignored that thrust, despite all the thrusting he’d done on those three memorable nights. “Wait till this fireball gets to Essad Pasha,” he said dolefully. “Just wait. He can’t pretend he doesn’t believe it, the way he did with the last one.”

“No. He really didn’t believe that one,” I said. I had a certain amount of trouble believing Essad Pasha would disbelieve the Atabeg’s latest. Since I had trouble believing it, I didn’t waste my time trying to persuade Max. Trying to persuade Max of anything good is commonly a waste of time. I did want to persuade him to keep quiet, so I added, “Essad Pasha hasn’t complained about my jugging Colonel Kemal and Major Mustafa.”

“Not yet,” Max said. “No, not yet. But he hasn’t heard the latest, either. When he does, he’ll probably complain about your jugging Josй-Diego, too.”

Now he’d gone too far. “Nobody could possibly complain about jugging Josй-Diego,” I said with great certainty. “North and south, east and west, even Josй thinks Diego wants jugging, and conversely.”

“And perversely, you mean,” Max said. “Curse it, we’re in trouble, Ot-uh, your Majesty.”

“You worry too much,” I said. “For all you know, this latest mumble from Vyzance won’t even get to Essad Pasha. Why should it?”

“Your Majesty!” That was Bob, the bewigged Albionese attempt at a scribe. Who else would shout at me in a language he didn’t think I spoke? Still in Albionese, he went on, “What do you think of the Atabeg’s latest statement, your Majesty?”

“That’s why,” Max said, fortunately in a low voice.

“Oh, shut up,” I told him, also quietly. I nodded to the scribe with Bob, a man possessed of some sense. The other newshounds, I noted, made a point of not letting Bob wander around by himself. I suppose none of them was really eager to be the one who had to identify his body. “What does he say?” I asked in Schlepsigian.

The other scribe translated something I understood into something I admitted understanding. “I also would like to know this, your Majesty,” he told me.

I’ll bet you would, I thought. No matter how foolish Bob was, not all of his questions were. Perfect idiocy, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, seemed beyond him. “I am afraid the Atabeg feels acknowledging my presence here would be an embarrassment,” I told the other scribe, and embroidered on that theme for some little while-the same story I’d given my dear Max and my not so dear Essad Pasha.

As I talked, Bob hopped up and down in an agony of impatience. He tugged at the other scribe’s sleeve like a little boy with no manners. “What does he say?” he asked, as I had. But he did it over and over again. “What does he say? What does he say?”

Had I been that other scribe, I would have hauled off and decked him. But the other man showed admirable patience-what was he doing in his line of work, anyway? He even did a good job of translating what I’d told him. When he finished, Bob nodded, as if in wisdom. “Well,” he said, “that makes sense.”

I sent Max a slightly superior smile, one that said, You see? They’re still buying it. I didn’t want to be too blatant, for fear the other scribe would notice me reacting to things I wasn’t supposed to be able to follow. Bob I wasn’t worried about. Bob noticed nothing, as he proved by believing me.

The other scribe sent him a pitying smile, as if he still thought Eliphalet drank the extra mug of beer people put out for his name day. “It’s a crock of crap, Bob,” he said in Albionese. “This guy’s lying through his teeth. Either he is or the Atabeg is, anyway, and the Atabeg sounds too cheesed off to be blowing smoke. Something’s screwy somewhere. You wait and see.”

I wasn’t supposed to be able to follow that, either. By my expression, you’d never know I did. I glanced over at Max. I wasn’t expecting a slightly superior smile from him, and I didn’t get one. Max doesn’t waste smiles like that. I’d never imagined anybody frowning a slightly superior frown, but there it was. Max’s face is made for expressing subtle shades of disapproval.

“Are you really the Atabeg’s nephew, your Majesty?” Bob asked. He had a childlike faith that, because he was a scribe, nothing he said could land him in trouble. Or maybe he was trying to prove he was a perfect idiot after all; I don’t know. I do know his keeper turned a shade of chartreuse that didn’t go at all well with the dark green jacket he was wearing.

“What does he say?” I asked again, as innocently as if I were innocent.

Instead of answering me, the other scribe spoke to Bob in a low voice. I really couldn’t follow all of that. What I could follow was…entertaining. Bob’s keeper wasn’t telling him all the different kinds of fool he was; he’d still be standing there in the Peshkepiia market square talking if he tried it. He did seem to make a judicious selection.

“What does he say?” I asked again after a while.

“Never mind, your Majesty. He’s decided he doesn’t really want to ask that question,” the other scribe said in Schlepsigian. “Haven’t you, Bob?” he added in ominous Albionese.

“It really would be interesting to find out,” Bob said. “Add a bit of human interest to things. Make a good story-do you know what I mean?”

“Yes, and the story right after it would be how an Albionese scribe got his nose cut off because he couldn’t keep from poking it into dark corners with knives hidden in them.” His keeper had some basic grasp on reality. The man switched to Schlepsigian to tell me, “Bob really and truly doesn’t want to ask that question.”

Bob really and truly did, but I wasn’t supposed to know it. So I smiled and nodded and let the other scribe lead the ineffable Albionese out of danger. Out of danger from me, anyhow-I had the feeling Bob would keep on putting himself in danger wherever he went and whatever he did. And he wouldn’t even know he was putting himself in danger, which would be all the more dangerous for him.

“Your Majesty.” By the exaggerated patience with which Max said it, he didn’t think I even knew I was putting myself in danger. “Your Majesty, it’s unraveling. It’s coming to pieces. Don’t you think we ought to get out while the getting’s good? Don’t you think we ought to while we still can?”

I sighed and reached up to pat him on the back. “Go if you want to, old fellow. I won’t say a word about it. But I’ll miss you tonight, I really will. Even with Zogu’s charm under the bed, I don’t know if I can handle six of them all by myself. Oh, well. I’ll just have to try my, ah, hardest. It’s my patriotic duty, after all.”

Max walked back to the palace with me. I’m sure his patriotic duty was the uppermost thing in his mind. Max always was a very patriotic fellow.

Strati. Hoti. Rruga. Jeni. Zarzavate. Silnif. The last of the harem. Thinking that made me sad. There wouldn’t be any more first times for me and Max. Ah, well. Some things don’t get boring even with repetition.

By that fourth night, Skander had given up asking the whereabouts of my distinguished minister for special affairs. He assumed Max was in the room where he belonged. I assumed Max belonged in the room where he was. Skander’s assumption satisfied him-and presumably Rexhep. Mine satisfied me.

Max seemed quite capable of satisfying himself.

Between the two of us, we seemed quite capable of satisfying Strati and Hoti and Rruga (roll those first two r’s as hard as you can) and Jeni and Zarzavate and Silnif. Yes, Zogu’s magic helped. But we knew what we were doing, and we did several different things. If we’d just done that, we never could have managed, even with a helping hand from the wizardry.

“Oh, your Majesty!” Zarzavate said at one point in the proceedings. I think it was Zarzavate. Whoever it was, I don’t believe I got a more heartfelt compliment in my whole reign.

But all good things must come to an end, which is another way to say you can’t keep coming forever, no matter how much you wish you could. We sprawled across the bed and across one another, worn out but happy.

“Which of us did you like best, your Majesty?” asked Hoti-I do believe it was Hoti.

“All of you,” I said. I might not be a politician, but I’m not an imbecile, either. I sounded sincere, too.

The girls laughed. Even Max unfrowned a little. But Hoti-was it Hoti?-didn’t want to leave it alone. She pouted prettily. “Yes, your Majesty, which of all of us?”

Well, I had an opinion. I had it, and I was bloody well going to keep it to myself. The Atabeg’s torturers couldn’t have torn it out of me. So I say, anyhow, never having made the acquaintance of those illustrious gentlemen.

“All of you,” I repeated. “I can’t imagine how any king anywhere in all the world could be happier than I am right now.” And I could imagine the harem wars if I didn’t stay evenhanded. I could, and I didn’t want to.

None of the girls felt combative just then. I liked the way they felt just fine. “We’d do anything for you, your Majesty,” Strati said. I’m almost sure it was Strati. “Anything at all.” If she was the one I thought she was at one particular moment-exactly who was who when blurred a bit-she meant every word of that, too.

“And for you, brave Captain Yildirim,” Silnif added. Well, let’s say it was Silnif. “We don’t want you to feel all alone, now.” She giggled. My minister for special affairs might have felt a lot of things right then, but he was most unlikely to feel alone.

A little later, Max did his amazing, astounding, never to be equaled disappearing act: he went back into my closet. The girls sighed with regret. I restored myself to something resembling decency. They sighed about that, too, which did ease my mind. Then they got dressed, which gave me something to regret.

I summoned Skander. Skander summoned Rexhep. The eunuch took the girls back to the harem. “You’ve made yourself remarkably popular, your Majesty,” Skander said, for all six of them went right on sighing. “Remarkably.” He knew something was going on, but he didn’t know what. A good thing he didn’t, too.

That was the end of my fourth night as King of Shqiperi.