Every Inch a King

XVII

On the fifth day, things fell apart.

I might have known they would. By Eliphalet’s fuzzy whiskers, I had known they would. I’d tried not to admit it, even to myself. I’d tried not to admit it, especially to myself. That didn’t make things any better when they did fall apart. Yes, I admit it. If I’d had any sense…

If I’d had any sense, I would have stayed in Thasos. I never would have become King of Shqiperi. I never would have browbeaten Essad Pasha. I never would have slain a dragon on the way to Peshkepiia. I never would have declared war on Belagora. I never would have made the acquaintance of so many lovely-well, reasonably lovely-Shqipetari maidens.

That was the good side. I’d savored every instant of it.

The bad side was, once things started falling apart, everybody else in Peshkepiia savored the notion of killing me in as many ingenious ways as possible. Even Essad Pasha showed a regrettable tendency not to stay browbeaten. I certainly regretted it, let me tell you.

He came to the palace while I was still eating breakfast. Given the general greasiness of Shqipetari breakfasts, most of the time I wouldn’t have minded having mine interrupted. Most of the time. This particular morning, though, he came with a sorcerous copy of the portrait of Halim Eddin, the very portrait that had launched me on my kingly career.

He looked at me. He looked at the portrait. He looked at me some more. He looked at the portrait again. Apparently, I was expected not to notice this. If I’d played by the rules, I wouldn’t have been sitting in the royal palace of Shqiperi eating an indifferent breakfast in the first place. “Is something troubling you, your Excellency?” I inquired.

Essad Pasha looked at me. He looked at the portrait. This could have grown tedious. It could also have given him a crick in the neck if he’d kept it up much longer. “You look like his Highness,” he said grudgingly.

“And what do you suppose the most likely reason for that is?” I said. “A man often resembles his portrait-if the artist has half a notion of what he’s doing, anyway.”

“But is that the most likely reason?” Was Essad Pasha asking himself or me? Himself, for he went on, “The Atabeg says you are not Halim Eddin.”

“I’ve already explained to you why he has to do that,” I said with such patience as I could muster. A man does get tired of telling the same lie over and over.

And a man does get alarmed when the fellow who most needs to believe that lie starts wondering about it. “Yes, but the Atabeg seemed quite emphatic, even impassioned, in his latest denial,” Essad Pasha said. “I shall have to investigate further.”

He didn’t really disbelieve me, or he never would have let me hear that last. “Investigate all you please,” I told him. “You will find it is just as I say.” The only sure way he could find it wasn’t was by sailing to Vyzance and looking at the veritable Halim Eddin there with his own eyes. If he was determined enough to do that, at least he would give me plenty of time to make my getaway.

Or so it seemed to me. But once things started unraveling, they came unknotted and unknitted faster than a cheap mitten. “Where are Colonel Kemal and Major Mustafa?” Essad Pasha asked.

If he didn’t hear it from me, he would from someone else. That would only make him more suspicious, if such a thing was possible. “In the dungeon here,” I answered. “They presumed to doubt my royal status, too.” I couldn’t very well jug Essad Pasha, no matter how good an idea that might seem. Without him, I had no hold at all on the Hassocki troops in Peshkepiia and the rest of Shqiperi.

Before Essad Pasha could say anything, Skander bustled up to me. “Your Majesty, Zogu the mage would speak to you.”

I sighed. I wouldn’t have enjoyed my breakfast even alone, not as oily as it was. I might as well not enjoy it in company, then. “Go fetch him,” I told Skander, and away he went. He still thought I was king.

“If we are going to fight the Belagorans, your Majesty, I need to speak to these officers,” Essad Pasha said. “I should like to have them released, if at all possible. They are excellent commanders.”

He waited. I wondered if he wanted to persuade them I was the king or if he wanted them to persuade him I wasn’t. But I had to act as if I trusted him, or he wouldn’t trust me at all. “You may see them,” I told him as Skander brought Zogu up to my table. “If they pledge their loyalty to me-and if they make me believe it-they may be released.”

“Very well, your Majesty.” Essad Pasha bowed and took his leave. He didn’t need to ask Skander where the dungeons were. Plainly, he already knew.

He would.

And he hadn’t even got to the dining-room door before I realized how many different flavors of fool I was. Colonel Kemal and Major Mustafa weren’t the only ones languishing in the dungeons. Josй-Diego was sitting in one of those cells, too. And Josй-Diego knew enough about Max and me not just to cook our goose but to incinerate it.

“Zogu!” If fate was kind enough to throw me a straw, I’d try to grab it. “How would you like to put another chunk of the Shqipetari royal treasury in your own pocket?”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind,” Zogu answered. Somehow, I hadn’t thought he would. “What do you need me to do?” He didn’t ask about a fee, not right then. I figured that meant he figured he had me by the short hairs. I also figured he was right.

I pointed after Essad Pasha. “Can you arrange it so his Excellency thinks he’s hurrying toward the dungeons but he’s really not moving very fast at all?”

A light gleamed in the wizard’s dark eyes. For all piratical porpoises, I’d just told him I wasn’t the rightful King of Shqiperi. If he felt like denouncing me, I’d probably end up envying my breakfast. But he only bowed. “As your Majesty wishes, so shall it be.”

If Zogu had to withdraw to his sorcerous lair, Essad Pasha would already have got to the place where I didn’t want him to go by the time the wizard set out to stop him. That struck me as an impractical solution to the difficulty in which I found myself. I cast about for one more timely. Tackling the military governor sprang to mind.

But Zogu proved himself a man of parts. And he had all the parts he needed right there with him. He took from his belt something that resembled both a curiously mottled fingernail and a much smaller version of the dragon’s scale I now wore under my tunic.

“As tortoises grow,” he remarked, “they shed the outer layer of the scutes that armor their backs. These come in handy now and again.”

I didn’t know whether this was now or again. I did know Zogu had better hurry if he was going to take care of what I needed from him. I also knew that, the more nervous I seemed, the more he would charge me when he finished-if he finished in time. I’m not the least accomplished actor in the world. I wouldn’t have succeeded even for five days in the role I was playing without a share of the true gift. But staying calm, or seeming to stay calm, while Zogu went through the rest of his pouches and pockets was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

After what felt like forever and might have been half a minute, he let out a small, satisfied grunt. The bit of dried, withered greenery he held up put me in mind of nothing so much as…a bit of dried, withered greenery. But he seemed pleased with it. “Henbane,” he explained-he was an inveterate explainer, was Zogu. “It has the property of blurring that which is and that which seems to be.”

“Very good,” I said, and could not help adding, “Can you make it seem to move faster?”

His smile told me his price had just gone up. Well, I was past worrying about that. What could I buy with the gold and silver in that multiply locked treasure chamber more precious than my own neck and its continuing attachment to my shoulders?

Zogu rubbed the henbane to powder between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. He let the powder drizzle down over the shed tortoise scute, which he held in his left palm. As he did so, he chanted in nasal, braying Shqipetari: an unmusical language at the best of times, which this was not.

I thought I caught Essad Pasha’s name in that flood of incomprehensible syllables. I also thought I caught mine. No, not Halim Eddin’s-mine. If Zogu didn’t say Otto of Schlepsig in there-well, then he said something else, that was all. But I sure thought he did. For a moment, I was offended. How could he presume to know who I really was? But he was a wizard, after all. If he set his mind to it, how could he not know?

With an abrupt motion, he swept the scute and the henbane dust from his hand. “It is accomplished, your Majesty,” he said, with no irony in my title that I could find-and I was looking.

I got to my feet. “All right,” I said. “Let’s see what Essad Pasha is doing.”

Before I could leave the dining room, Max burst in. My distinguished minister for special affairs seemed imperfectly pleased with the world around him. I wondered why. I had the distinct feeling I didn’t really want to know.

“Your Majesty-” Max sounded as happy as he looked-which is to say, he thought the end was nigh.

“Captain, the news will wait, whatever it may be,” I said.

“No, it won’t,” Max said.

“Yes, it will,” I said in my best royal tones-so soon to be abandoned! “We must discover what our bold and clever mage has accomplished.”

“You do me too much honor,” Zogu murmured.

“I had better not,” I told him. Let him take that as he pleased. Maybe I meant his services were vital, and that I had confidence he’d done what he set out to do. Or maybe I meant his services were vital, and his head would answer if something had gone wrong. A man with a spell is generally stronger than a man with a sword. But a man with a sword can generally use his weapon faster than a man with a spell. Since Zogu was right there between Max and me, he had to be a little thoughtful…

Max seemed about ready to burst. “Your Majesty, you really do need to know-Ow!” Not entirely by accident, I’d done my best to flatten Max’s instep. The look he gave me made me wonder if Zogu was the only one who needed to worry about swords. But he did shut up. That was nice.

Each of us thinking his no doubt interesting thoughts, none of us saying anything, we walked out into the hallway. One of the palace servants trotted toward me, calling, “Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”

When I put the crown on five days earlier, I never dreamt I might tire of the title. Just at that moment, though, I rather wished people would forget I was King of Shqiperi. “Yes, Mujo?” I couldn’t possibly have sounded as apprehensive as I felt.

But Mujo said, “Your Majesty, Essad Pasha’s had some kind of fit! Come quick!”

“You see?” Zogu said quietly.

“I see,” I answered, as quietly. Max started to say something. I stepped on his foot again; I don’t know how I could have been so clumsy. “Oh, what a pity!” I told Mujo in my normal tone of voice, or as normal as I could sound while shamelessly overacting. “Take me to him right away!”

And the good Mujo did. By what he’d said, I expected to see Essad Pasha thrashing on the floor foaming at the mouth. That wasn’t what I’d looked for from Zogu’s wizardry. It turned out not to be what I got, either.

There Essad Pasha was, hurrying along toward the dungeons. Every line of his body proclaimed his urgency. Purpose gleamed in his eyes. His mouth was firm and determined.

I walked up to him. I walked past him. I walked around him. I stopped next to him. If I watched for a little while, I could see him moving. If I’d stood around for an hour or so, I might have seen him take another step. At that rate, he would get to the dungeons just a little before Colonel Kemal and Major Mustafa died of old age.

A number of fates might still await me in Shqiperi. Somehow, I didn’t think dying of old age was one of them.

“Are you satisfied, your Majesty?” Zogu asked.

“Will you listen to me, your Majesty?” Max asked.

“Yes,” I said, and then, “No.” To Zogu, I went on, “Let’s go to the treasury. You’ve earned your pay.” To Max, I went on, “Captain Yildirim, whatever it is, it will keep for a little while.”

“They’re getting ready to hang you from a lamppost out there, and me from the one next door,” Max said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I told him. “Peshkepiia hasn’t got any lampposts.”

That kept him quiet till we got to the treasury chamber. The guards standing in front of it came to attention. I had the keys to the treasury with me-what better perquisite of kingship? One by one, the locks opened. The bars came off. The door swung wide. We went inside. I unlocked the chests.

“Go ahead,” I said to Zogu. “Help yourself.”

“North and south, east and west, your Majesty, that is spoken like a king!” he exclaimed.

“Nice of you to say so,” I answered. By Eliphalet’s holy hangnail, I was still a king! I might not have been Prince Halim Eddin, the way Essad Pasha thought I was. But I had been properly crowned as King of Shqiperi, no matter who I really was. All hail King Otto I! Long may he reign! Unfortunately, King Otto I was going to have a short reign, and it would have been even shorter if he hadn’t been smart enough to realize as much.

Zogu wasn’t shy about exacting his fee, but he wasn’t greedy-or not too greedy, anyhow. “You put my honor at stake here,” he said. “Were you niggardly, I would feel duty-bound to take more.”

“If I didn’t know you had honor, I wouldn’t have spoken the way I did,” I replied. One more lie for the road, even if a lie kindly meant. The truth was, right then I didn’t care how much he took. He couldn’t carry it all away, which was the only thing that mattered to me. But this was a lie that helped me more than the truth would have.

The mage bowed very low, clinking musically as he did. “For your kindness, your Majesty, I will give you a parting gift.” He plucked a withered leaf from a pouch on his belt. “Here is a veritable tortoise leaf.”

He’d used a tortoise scute before. That I understood, even if I’d never heard the term till he gave it to me. But this…“Do tortoises in Shqiperi turn into shrubs, or maybe grow on them?” I asked.

“Not so,” Zogu said. “No one knows from which plant the she-tortoise-for it is always a she-tortoise-finds this leaf. She will not seek it if she is followed. But she carries it in her mouth with her. To get it from her, you must build a wall of stones around the nest where she has laid her eggs. The leaf has the property of breaking down any wall or door.” He bowed again. “May it prove useful to you.”

He still didn’t say he knew I wasn’t the king Essad Pasha had thought I was. He didn’t need to say anything of the kind. He just gave me a present that would help me go on being who I was, even if I wasn’t who Essad Pasha thought I was. Zogu might have worn his hair in a cut that looked like a pancake, but he was all right.

I bowed to him in turn. “It shall be a talisman, as long as my reign lasts.” No, I wasn’t going to admit a thing.

“Good fortune go with you-and with your leaf,” he said. One more bow, and he was gone.

“Now,” I said to Max. “You wanted to tell me something?”

He eyed the guards outside the door and spoke in a low voice. That didn’t make him sound any less, ah, sincere-on the contrary, in fact. “Man, things are getting critical out there! We can’t stay here any more, not after those cursed scribes-may demons take them-went and spilled the beans. More and more people know about the denials from Vyzance, and more and more people believe them. If we don’t escape right now, we’re lost. We’ll be shot!”

Shot! Brr…That was not a pretty word.

But it was obvious that my good minister for special affairs was right. If it became clear the denials were true, then nothing good would happen to us. Essad Pasha (once he thawed out anyway) and his officers would be in a fine fury because we’d led them around by the nose like that. I could picture it perfectly well in my mind. I didn’t want to wait around to see it for real.

And I wouldn’t have to wait around very long. One of the palace guards trotted up to the treasury. He saluted me as king and said, “Excuse me, your Majesty, but there are soldiers outside the front entrance who don’t seem well-inclined toward you.”

How big an understatement was that? Probably bigger by the second. If I couldn’t get adulation, chaos seemed the next best bet. I clapped a hand to my forehead. I looked stricken. As I had with Mujo, I overacted like you wouldn’t believe. “Traitors!” I cried. “North and south, east and west, traitors beset me! They must be in Narbonese pay, those accursed curs! They’d eat their dead, vomit it up, and howl for more. Hold them off as long as you can. Reinforcements are on the way!”

The soldier saluted. He bowed. He ran back toward the entrance, waving his sword. When you do things like that, people get out of your way. They’d better, anyhow. One of the guards at the treasury door turned to peer in at me, his eyes as wide as saucers. “Your Majesty?” he said.

“Go help the men at the entrance,” I told him. “Captain Yildirim and I will protect the treasury till you’ve beaten back the wicked rebels.”

“Aye, your Majesty!” This poor sap saluted and bowed, too. He and his pal hotfooted it down the corridor after the other soldier. I couldn’t see if they were waving their swords. It wouldn’t surprise me, though. If you’re going to act melodramatic, don’t do it halfway.

“Narbonese pay?” Max said. “Protect the treasury?”

“Of course, Narbonese pay. You wouldn’t expect me to blame a kingdom that’s friendly to Schlepsig, would you?” I said. “And you’d best believe I intend to protect the treasury-as much of it as I can carry, anyway.” I started filling every pocket and pouch my uniform possessed. I stuffed coins down my boot tops, too.

Max stared at me. Then-I know you’ll think I’m making this up, but I am a truthful man-he started to laugh. “By Eliphalet’s burgeoning bank account, Otto, you’re not crazy after all!” He also loaded up.

Zogu had clinked when he left the treasury. We didn’t. We’d packed ourselves too tight with cash to make much noise. The first few steps, I was awkward-I’d gained more than a little weight. I soon got the hang of it, though. Max was less graceful, but Max is always less graceful.

“Aren’t you going to close the door?” Max inquired as we exited, stage left.

“Not me,” I told him. “Sooner or later”-by the racket out front, it sounded like sooner-“those mean-spirited, misguided, misunderstanding rogues out there are going to break in. Some of them just may prove more interested in an open treasury than in open season on a king-and on his minister for special affairs.”

“A point. A distinct point,” he allowed. “How much do you think we’ve got?”

“More than Dooger and Cark would have paid us, that’s for sure,” I said. “Enough so that I’d sooner not go swimming.”

“Urk,” Max said, which was more or less what I was thinking. Servants stared at us as we strode past. I don’t know what they were thinking. There wasn’t really time to ask. They didn’t try to stop us. Surely that was a sign of approval of my glorious if all too brief reign. After a bit, Max asked, “Do you have any idea where you’re going?”

Surely that was a sign of imperfect trust in one’s sovereign. “As a matter of fact, yes,” I answered. And I did.

Things were getting quite unpleasantly loud out front when I came to the harem door. “Ah,” Max said as I unbarred it from my side. If you want great roars of approval from Max, you’ll be disappointed. If you want any sort of approval from Max, you’ll mostly be disappointed. I was glad to take what I got.

That door, of course, remained barred from the other side. I pounded on it, calling, “Rexhep! Where are you, man?” The last word gave him too much credit, but better too much than not enough just then.

The pause that followed almost lasted long enough for me to try out Zogu’s tortoise leaf, or whatever it was. In due course-much too due-the eunuch peered at me through the grate. “Well, what is it?” Rexhep asked, and then, after another beat, “Your Majesty?”

“I want to come into the harem,” I said. “What did you expect? That I wanted to sell you some garlic?”

His cold eyes flicked from me to Max, who was standing behind me. Max couldn’t hide behind me-Max can’t hide behind anybody I can think of. “You cannot bring Captain Yildirim in with you,” Rexhep said.

“What?” I yelped. “Demons take you, I’m King of Shqiperi! I can do anything I please!” If I got into the harem, I might even get away from Peshkepiia with a whole skin. That would have pleased me, all right.

Rexhep shook his head. “I am the chief eunuch of the harem. Captain Yildirim may not come in. No whole man may enter my domain, save only the king. It is the law.” He didn’t know what kind of entering Max had been up to back in my bedchamber, the Two Prophets be praised.

I started to reach for the tortoise leaf again. I wasn’t going to put up with that nonsense, not even for a heartbeat. But then women’s squeals and cries of, “Yildirim! Sweet Yildirim!” came from the other side of the door. Rexhep said something in Shqipetari. Whatever it was (I do-somewhat-regret not learning any of the language of the kingdom I ruled), it didn’t work. A moment later, I heard the sounds of a scuffle. A moment after that, the door opened.

“Come in, your Majesty,” Lutzi said.

“Come in, sweet Captain Yildirim,” Maja and Strati added. Several of the other girls were sitting on Rexhep. If looks could kill…If looks could kill, he would have slaughtered the men who made him into what he was, so I was safe enough there. In I went, sweet Captain Yildirim at my heels.

“What do you need, your Majesty?” Hoti asked.

“The back way out,” I answered. “I’m afraid there’s been a bit of a palace revolution. Some of the Hassocki soldiers in the city want to see me slightly dead-and sweet Captain Yildirim, too.” If they were going to make an unseemly fuss over Max (no accounting for taste, is there?), I intended to remind them that his long, scrawny neck was on the line, too.

Lutzi gasped. “Why would anyone want to hurt you, your Majesty? You’re so-so lovable!” I liked the way she thought. I liked just about everything about her, to tell you the truth. She’d been pretty thoroughly lovable herself.

“It’s a long story.” I heard several crashes from out front, and then furious shouts inside the palace. None of that sounded good. “It’s a long story, and I haven’t got time to tell it. The back way, fast as we can go!”

“Yes, your Majesty!” the girls chorused. To them, I was still a king. Some of them led Max and me through the harem. Some went on sitting on Rexhep-one of them had the presence of mind to gag him. Some had even more presence of mind than that. They shut the door between the harem and the rest of the palace and set the alarmingly stout bar in its brackets, which was something I should have thought of.

“They’ll notice it isn’t barred from the other side,” Max said sorrowfully.

“They’ll still have to get in,” I answered. “By the time they do, we’ll have got out.” If we hadn’t got out by then, we were in even more trouble than I thought we were. And they said it couldn’t be done!

I started to reach up and yank the rank badges off Max’s shoulder straps. My first thought was that it would make him less conspicuous. My next thought was that painting over a few of a giraffe’s spots wouldn’t make it a whole lot less conspicuous. Unfortunately, that made better sense than the other did. I wished I’d asked Zogu for a spell to make Max seem shorter. Too late now.

We hustled to the back door. One of the girls looked through a spyhole to make sure no unfriendly soldiers-there didn’t seem to be any other kind just then-were lurking outside, intent on making some royal shashlik. The girls hadn’t been in the palace much longer than I had. Did Rexhep tell them about the spyhole? I doubted it; Rexhep wouldn’t have told his own mother his name. They’d probably found it themselves, then. They had all sorts of interesting talents.

“The coast is clear, your Majesty,” she said.

“Those nasty people haven’t broken into the harem yet, either,” another girl said.

“You don’t have to leave just yet, then.” Three or four girls said that. I wasn’t sure if they were talking to me or to the redoubtable (he was certainly worth doubting more than once) Captain Yildirim.

I also wasn’t sure what would-or could-happen next. They’d spent the past four nights draining both of us dry. Worse, Zogu’s aphrodisiac was back in the royal bedchamber. I hated to leave the girls disappointed…

And, somehow, I didn’t. Neither did Max. We got out a little later than we thought we would, a little tireder than we thought we would, and a lot happier than we thought we would. The back door opened silently, on well-oiled hinges. Had any of the women from earlier harems sneaked out? Had they smuggled any men in? I’d never know, but I had my royal suspicions.

“Farewell, your Majesty,” Lutzi purred.

“Farewell, sweetheart.” I corrected myself: “Sweethearts. Umm…You may be interested to know that nobody bothered closing the door to the treasury after the last time Captain Yildirim and I, ah, checked it.”

They didn’t forget about Max and me the instant they heard that. I can imagine no more sincere compliment. Out into the alley behind the palace we went. They closed the door behind us. The bar thumped down. Then they all squealed-I could hear them through those stout oaken timbers-and then, I have no doubt, they scrambled off for their share of the royal loot.

I hope they grabbed with both hands.

“Well,” Max said, “what now?”

“Getting out of Peshkepiia without ending up with more holes than a colander would be nice,” I said.

“It would, if we could,” Max said. “How do you propose to manage it?”

“If we can get away from the goons around the palace, I think we’ll be all right,” I answered. “Once we do that, we scurry off toward the eastern gate as fast as our little legs will take us. If we steer clear of the Metropolis and the fortress, we’ve got a pretty fair chance.”

“I don’t know what you’ve been putting in your pipe, but give me some if you’ve got any left,” Max said.

I don’t suppose it was lese majesty; I wasn’t exactly king any more. I said, “Think about it. Who really knows I’m King of Shqiperi? The Hassocki soldiers who were trying to get hold of this place and the foreigners at the hostel. The Shqipetari may know they’ve got a king, but most of them don’t know what he looks like. To them, we’re just a couple of Hassocki officers.”

“That’s not reason enough to knock us over the head?” Max was cheerful as usual.

“Nobody without a stepladder could knock you over the head, my dear,” I told him. “And speaking of stepping…”

Step we did, and step lively, too. We tried to head east, steering by the sun and doing our best to stay away from what passed for main streets in Peshkepiia. Now, I didn’t fall off the turnip wagon yesterday. I know how to find my way around. If you don’t understand how to find your way around strange towns, you’ve got no business signing up with an outfit like Dooger and Cark’s.

Peshkepiia was harder to navigate than it had any business being. It’s not very big, but the streets double back on each other like you wouldn’t believe. They would remind me of a plate of those long, skinny Torinan noodles, only they’re slathered in stuff a lot nastier than tomato sauce.

If the Hassocki soldiers caught up with us, though, they’d do their best to turn us into meatballs.

Right then, I didn’t think anybody could catch up with us. I thought we might run into ourselves coming and going. It wouldn’t have surprised me much; the lanes and alleys and streets were that twisty. By the time we walked past the same place that sold secondhand clothes for about the fourth time, I started wondering how anybody ever got out of Peshkepiia, or if anybody ever did.

The old man who ran the place didn’t seem surprised to watch us go by and go by and go by and go by. He didn’t need to worry about shaving part of his scalp; he was bald as an eggplant, and not a whole lot less purple. He wore a big gray mustache that looked like it was trying to be wings and damn near succeeding.

When we saw him the fourth time, I had an idea: “What do you say we buy some Shqipetari clothes? Uniforms are fine here in town, but out in the countryside we’d do better looking like everybody else.”

“You should have thought of that back in the palace. I know every outfit you had in your closet,” Max said. I’ll bet he did, too. But it was also too late for that. Given his excessive assortment of inches, I figured he was thinking clothes wouldn’t unmake the man. But something else was on his mind: “Maybe we ought to just stick around this place. Soldiers will never find it. I’m not sure it’s connected to the outside world.”

My guess was that he had at least an even-money chance of being right. Whether he was or not, though, we really couldn’t stick around. “Maybe new clothes will change our luck,” I said. Max made a small production out of his shrug. I made a small production out of not seeing it. Striding up to the fellow who sat at the front of the shop, I asked, “Do you speak Hassocki?”

He paused to puff on his water pipe. He blinked a couple of times. Nothing happens fast in Shqiperi. You’ll go mad if you expect it to. That’s true all over the Nekemte Peninsula. And if they think you’re in a hurry down there, they’ll only go slower. Watching foreigners go mad is one of the local sports. Driving them mad is another one.

I waited. And waited. And waited some more. If I was a Hassocki myself, I was supposed to understand how the game worked. When I didn’t whip out my sword or try to snatch that amber mouthpiece away from him and either jam it down his throat or up the other way, he eventually unbent enough to take it out of his mouth and grudge me a word: “Yes.”

“Will you sell us outfits?” I asked. Whatever Max got wouldn’t fit him well. I knew that. But the people looking for us were unlikely to care much about how Shqipetari clothes fit any which way.

The old geezer looked at me. He looked at Max. His eyes were as black and opaque as a tortoise’s-and I don’t mean a tortoise with a leaf in its beak, either. He gave me another grudging, “Yes.”

“As you find the time, then, you might let us see your wares.” I yawned and shrugged. “Nothing of great importance, though. I don’t know why I asked in the first place. You probably won’t have anything we want, anyhow.”

All games have their tricks. Acting slower than the other fellow will speed him up. After a last puff on his pipe, the old Shqipetar actually stood up. I’d wondered if he was taking root there. “Come. I will show you,” he said.

I’d won the round. I knew it, and he had to know it, too. His shop was even dimmer and darker inside than it had seemed from the street. That turned out not to be so bad. About two minutes after we went in, a couple of squads of Hassocki soldiers clumped by-the place was attached to the rest of Peshkepiia after all. The soldiers didn’t look inside the shop. I wasn’t sorry they didn’t-oh, no, not a bit.

I bought black trousers and a white shirt and a sheepskin jacket and a leather sack to hold my loot; I was abandoning any number of pouches and pockets. I also bought a floppy hat to keep people from noticing I wasn’t sheared like a Shqipetar. The breeches Max got were too short, but they were the longest ones the old man had. Max’s wrists stuck out of his shirtsleeves, too. He chose a wool cape instead of a jacket: it had no sleeves. His sack was canvas, and his hat was even uglier than mine.

We gave the old Shqipetar our uniforms-all but the boots-as part of the price. They were bound to be worth more than the outfits we were buying, but we couldn’t be fussy just then. With the uniform went the last vestiges of my royalty. I was a commoner again: an uncommon commoner, but a commoner even so.

“Which way to the east gate,” Max asked, in lieu of something like, How do we never see this corner again?

The old man gave us directions. I made him repeat them. We tried them. They really and truly worked. The Two Prophets must have been in the mood to dole out miracles. Thank you, Eliphalet. And thank you, too, Zibeon, but not quite so much.

We had only one bad moment on the way to the gate. We walked right past Bob. He was speaking-in Albionese, of course-to someone who didn’t seem to know much of his language. “Yes, the king and his minister appear to have fled,” he said. “No one has any idea where they are.”

He was looking right at us. The only way to make Max look like anyone but Max would be to chop him off at the ankles. A cowflop of a hat will not do the trick. Bob perceived…nothing. He was looking for two men in Hassocki uniforms. Failing to see them, he had no interest in anything or anyone else. Neither my good looks nor Max’s height made him give us a second glance.

No one else did, either. The gate guards were counting sheep (for the wool tax, not for the sake of sleep) as we strolled out. One of them nodded to us. The rest went on arguing about the count with Bopip-I think that was the shepherd’s name, anyway. I showed the seat of my pants to the seat of my government and headed east.