Every Inch a King

by Harry Turtledove

  Sometimes-too often, most of the time-you can’t get one woman to fall in love with you. Here I had a couple of dozen all doing it at once. It would have been embarrassing if I hadn’t enjoyed it so much.

  Every once in a while, I glanced over at poor Rexhep. Once, he caught me doing it. That was embarrassing. “May I speak with you a moment, your Majesty?” he asked in that strange, epicene voice.

  “Of course,” I said, and then, to the harem girls, “I’ll be with you in a moment, my sweethearts.” I was sporting with them. Some of them, I think, realized as much. To others, the play was real. The Shqipetari sequester their women in Hassockian fashion-how not, when they learned it from the Hassocki? That only makes it easier for the girls to grow up naive and trusting.

  Rexhep drew me far enough aside to keep the harem girls from overhearing-and don’t think they didn’t want to, the little snoops! “Are you a wizard, your Majesty?” the eunuch asked.

  “Not a bit of it,” I answered. “I’ve only been a king for a couple of hours. Wizardry will have to wait. Why do you ask?” Maybe the girls weren’t the only naive ones; maybe he thought those tricks of memory were real magic, too.

  That turned out to be close to the mark, but not on it. “Because you’ve ensorcelled your harem, that’s why,” he said. “Before you came in, half of them were angry at being plucked from their homes, and the other half were frightened. Now look at them! They want to have more to do with you.” He sounded as if that were the nastiest perversion he could think of. All things considered, it probably was.

  “I don’t want them angry. I don’t want them frightened. I want them friendly. I’ll want them very friendly tonight,” I said. “So I try to make them like me. What’s so strange about that?”

  He couldn’t see it. He thought it was a trick if it wasn’t magic. I wondered what sort of harem he’d kept before, and what kind of hellhole it was. By the look of sour bafflement on his face, he knew no more of affection than a blind man knows of sunsets. A pity, no doubt, but I couldn’t give him what he’d lost.

  I went back to jollying the girls along. Rexhep went back to trying to figure out what I was up to. He wouldn’t believe what I told him, even when it was true. He needed complications, poor soul, whether they were real or not.

  After a while, I turned to go. The girls sighed in disappointment. Rexhep looked relieved and suspicious at the same time-an expression only a eunuch’s face could manage. I told the girls, “Some of you will be summoned to my chamber tonight. If you aren’t summoned to my chamber tonight, it doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I’m only one man, and not quite so young as I wish I were.” Some of them giggled. Others had no idea what I was talking about. They really do raise them innocent in Shqiperi. I went on, “If I don’t summon you tonight, I will summon you another night, and one not long from now. I know you will all delight me, and I’ll try to please you, too. Meanwhile…”

  Several girls tried to follow me out toward the doorway to the outer world. Only Rexhep’s scowls restrained them. Rexhep’s scowls, I think, could restrain anything up to and possibly including a dragon. As far as gloom goes, he gives Max a run for his money. Rexhep, of course, has the advantage-if that’s the word I want-of a real grievance against the world. No denying Max does well without it.

  Rexhep unbarred the door on this side of the wall. Skander unbarred it on that side. I passed from one side to the other, from one world to another. Both the head eunuch and the palace majordomo made haste to separate those worlds again. As soon as the door closed, two bars thudded into place at the same time.

  “Have you thought of a wizard for me?” I asked Skander. “I’d like to use his services this afternoon.”

  “The very best in Peshkepiia, I believe, is a certain Zogu,” Skander said. “He dwells not far from the palace. If it would please you that he be summoned…”

  “It would please me very much,” I said. I hoped it would, anyhow. Skander bowed and hurried away.

  I went to the throne room. It was, to put things kindly, still a work in progress. That might have been gold foil pressed on the arms and legs and back of the Shqipetari royal seat. It might have been, but it looked more like the wrapping paper for nameday gifts you can buy in smart shops from the Dual Monarchy to Albion. Stranger things than a smart shop in Peshkepiia may have happened, but I can’t think of one lately.

  Above the throne hung the royal emblem: a black two-headed eagle on a red background. It might have seemed more impressive if it hadn’t looked like a small rug woven for the even smaller tourist trade. A label was attached to the bottom corner of the royal emblem. PRODUCT OF ALBION, it read-so that really was a small rug woven for the tourist trade.

  When I rested my arms on those of the throne, the shiny gold crackled and crunched. It was wrapping paper, then. I thought of the treasure in the strongroom. One of these days, Shqiperi would be a kingdom, I told myself, not just try to look like one.

  Ah, well. We all make promises we can’t keep.

  After about half an hour, Skander returned with another Shqipetar, presumably Zogu. The wizard had a sharp nose, a bristling mustache, and a pancake of hair on top of his head, the rest of his scalp being shaved. “Your Majesty,” he murmured, bowing toward the makeshift throne. “How may I serve you?”

  “As you know my rank, you will know the privileges accompanying it,” I said. “You will also know the obligations accompanying it. And you will know that some of the privileges, if taken to extremes, become obligations. They can even become obligations a man is, ah, impotent to meet.”

  I waited. Zogu looked clever. If he had not the wit to figure out what I was talking about, though, I wanted nothing to do with him. He didn’t disappoint me. Laying a finger by the side of his nose and winking, he said, “You want to screw your way through the harem like you were seventeen again.”

  “Better than that, I hope-when I was seventeen, I was a clumsy puppy,” I said. Zogu laughed-reminiscently, I suppose, for who isn’t a clumsy puppy at seventeen? I went on, “I would like to be able to go as often now as I did then.”

  “I can help you,” the wizard said. “The formulary will serve you well for a night, or two nights, or three, or maybe even four. Use it too long, though, and you will soon find you are a man of years not far removed from my own.” His chuckle had a wry edge. “Do I know this from experience? North and south, east and west, your Majesty, I do.”

  “A few such nights should suffice,” I assured him. “By then, I shall have made my point.”

  Zogu laughed merrily. “And I’m supposed to keep you pointing, eh? Well, just as you say, just as you say.”

  Was he too clever for his own good? Men of that sort often are. “I rely on your magecraft,” I said, “but I also rely on your discretion. If your spell fails, I will do the best I can on my own. If your discretion fails, Zogu, north and south, east and west, the world is not wide enough to hide you from me. Do you understand what I tell you?”

  “Oh, yes, your Majesty. Oh, yes. I have served…others who relied on my discretion. If I were to name them, they would have relied on it in vain,” he said.

  “Good,” I said, for the answer pleased me. “Carry on, then-and I will carry on later.”

  He chuckled again, and bowed. “May it be just as you say.”

  At his feet sat a carpetbag. Had I met him in Schlepsig or the Dual Monarchy, I would have taken him for a commercial traveler with the worst haircut in the world. He began taking sundry stones and herbs and animal bits from the carpetbag. “You have everything you need?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Zogu answered easily. “When Skander summoned me, I thought on what you might require. I was not sure I knew-he gave me no time for a proper divination-but this possibility did cross my mind.”

  “Get on with it, then,” I said.

  He smiled and bowed and did. He was one of those wizards who like to explain things. I always let such people ramble on. You never can tell when you’ll hear somethin
g worth remembering. “This we call here the eagle’s stone, your Majesty,” he said. It was about the size and shape of an eagle’s egg, or half an egg sliced lengthwise. The inside was lined with glittering white crystals, but otherwise hollow. “Its property is the engendering of love betwixt man and woman.”

  “Engendering is what I have in mind, all right,” I said.

  Zogu put some seeds into the eagle’s stone and brayed them with a pestle. “These come from sweet basil,” he told me. I didn’t know who Basil was, but I wanted the girls to think me sweet. More seeds. I recognized these from their smell before Zogu said, “Anise.” It goes into Lokrian spirits, and they’ll rouse anything this side of the dead. The wizard added more bits of vegetable material. “Rocket,” he said. Since I wanted to up, up like a rocket, if not so fast, I nodded.

  Next came some scraps of what looked like thin parchment. “What’s that?” I inquired.

  “The shed skin of a long snake.” Zogu winked at me. I grinned back.

  After that he put in some small blue pills and used the pestle to crush them to powder. “What are those?” I asked.

  Zogu winked again and powdered another couple of pills. “My secret ingredient, you might say.”

  “Well, well,” I said. Since he talked about so much of what he did, what he wouldn’t talk about must have been potent indeed.

  “Set the eagle’s stone under your bed before you summon your lovelies,” Zogu told me after chanting over it in both Hassocki and Shqipetari. “You will rise to the occasion, and may you win a standing ovation.”

  “My thanks,” I said. “And your fee for the services rendered?” When he named it, I didn’t scream, as I would have in my private capacity. How could I, when he was increasing my privates’ capacity? I just paid him. It’s good to be the king.

  XII

  Several hours still lay between me and sunset. I suppose I could have begun in broad daylight, but that might have scandalized the harem girls. And, as I soon discovered, a king’s life is not an idle one. Anyone would think a man with a crown on his head ran a kingdom or something.

  No sooner had Zogu departed the palace, his belt pouch clinking with silver, than Skander came up to me and said, “Your Majesty, Barisha of Belagora would have speech with you.”

  “Oh, he would, would he?” I said. About the only people less welcome in the throne room would have been Count Rappaport and a dentist. But Skander nodded. I didn’t suppose I could summarily dismiss the representative of my northern neighbor, however much I wanted to. With a sigh, I nodded. “Let him advance and be recognized.”

  Recognizing Barisha, I must confess, was seldom a problem. Each uniform he wore was more garish than the last. This one was of thick, shimmering blue silk, with a gold sash running from northeast to southwest. I wondered if he’d won it from Jean-Jacques-Pierre-Roland at dice. Medals and ribbons bedizened his chest. I also wondered what they were. The Belagoran Award for Gloriously Getting Up on Time Two Days Running? The Grand Star of the Illustrious Order of Horse-leeches? The Medal for Proficiency in Stealing Chickens, Second Class? I shook my head. Barisha, no doubt, was a first-class chicken thief.

  All the medals clanked and jingled as he grudged me a bow. “Your Majesty,” he said, and then, even more grudgingly, “My congratulations on your accession.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I hope Shqiperi and Belagora long remain at peace.”

  “May Zibeon grant it be so.” Even Barisha’s agreement was insulting. He rubbed Halim Eddin’s nose in his following the Two Prophets rather than the Quadrate God. And, though he didn’t know it, he rubbed Otto of Schlepsig’s nose in his following Zibeon rather than Eliphalet.

  Because I had to be Halim Eddin and not Otto, I rubbed back as a proper worshiper of the Quadrate God would have: “North and south, east and west, let peace prevail.”

  “In the south, in the east, in the west, peace will indeed prevail, as far as Belagora is concerned,” Barisha said. “In the north…In the north, your Majesty, we do not recognize the border the Powers have declared. Now that the Hassockian Empire has lost the Nekemte Wars, that border should and must become more rational.”

  “By which you mean more the way you want it,” I said sourly.

  “But of course.” He was a very smug and self-satisfied chicken thief-he didn’t even take the trouble to deny it.

  “This is my land now. You may not steal it,” I said.

  “How do you propose to stop us?” he sneered. “I told you before-we have the men on the ground. Tremist will be ours, and soon.”

  “Hassocki soldiers still in Shqiperi will obey me,” I said. Barisha went right on sneering. I added, “And we will create a proper Shqipetari army as soon as possible.” I had some hope he would take that seriously. Shqiperi had no true soldiers except for what was left of the Hassocki garrisons-no denying that. But the custom of the blood-feud means every male Shqipetar who shaves goes around armed all the time. I’d never seen so much deadly hardware on display as I did here.

  Barisha remained unimpressed. “And what hero from ancient days has been reborn to command your fearsome host?” he inquired.

  That question struck much too close to the bone. Most Shqipetari acknowledge one master and one master only: themselves. This makes them excellent raiders, excellent ambushers, excellent hunters-and terrible soldiers. Men in an army need to act together. Shqipetari do as they bloody well please. They might obey a hero from ancient days-or they might decide he was an old fool and ignore him, too. Any modern leader would have his hands full.

  Even more than in the rest of the world, in the Nekemte Peninsula to back down is to admit weakness. If I yielded so much as a clod of Shqipetari soil to Barisha, he would be back demanding more day after tomorrow. Vlachia and Lokris would scream for their share, or more than their share, too. Other kingdoms would want to do the same, but only those three border Shqiperi. Well, I suppose the Torinans would take a seaside bite, too. And so…

  “The old border will stand,” I said.

  “It will not,” Barisha answered.

  “We shall resist with force any attempt to change it,” I said.

  “We do not seek to change it. We seek to set it right.” Barisha proved himself a hypocrite and a liar in the same breath-no mean accomplishment.

  “If you do not take your soldiers back across the old border, we will make them sorry,” I said.

  Barisha bowed. “What is ours is ours.”

  “And what is ours is also yours? Is that what you are saying, your Excellency?”

  “I am saying the Hassocki soldiers still in Tremist occupy land that should always have belonged to Belagora. We must correct this unjust and immoral situation.”

  “And I must tell you that it looks fitting and proper to me,” I answered. “We shall not let our kingdom be abridged before it is well begun. The old Hassocki province of Shqiperi, on whose borders the Powers have agreed, shall be the new Kingdom of Shqiperi, and there is nothing more to be said.”

  “Oh, but there is,” Barisha said. “For one thing, your Majesty, your so-called kingdom is a joke, a land full of goatherds and cattle rustlers. For another, Belagora has its legitimate rights, and will protect them by force of arms as necessary.”

  I remembered my earlier ruminations on Barisha’s medals, and a joke I’d once heard. “Do you know how to make Belagoran chicken stew, your Excellency?” I asked.

  Barisha’s bushy eyebrows made his frown something less than a thing of beauty. “Why, no,” he said-he made an admirable straight man.

  “First, steal a chicken…” I began.

  He turned a color no doctor would have cared to see in a man of his age and weight. “You insult me! You insult my kingdom!”

  “You enjoy it more when you insult mine, don’t you? Well, I am here to tell you that that arrow can shoot both ways,” I said. “And I am also here to tell you that we will fight you if you do not withdraw. Is that plain enough, or should I draw you pretty picture
s to color in?”

  Barisha went an even less appealing shade of purple. It clashed badly with his uniform. Before I could point this out to him, he said, “Do you presume-do you dare-to threaten the mighty Kingdom of Belagora with war?”

  “I dare not to be redundant, which is more-or rather, less-than you can say,” I answered. “And if you want a war in the north, you can have it. I don’t just threaten Belagora with war. I declare war on your robbers’ nest of a kingdom. As of this moment, your not very Excellency, you are persona non grata in Shqiperi.” I raised my voice to a shout: “Skander!”

  He appeared as if from a trap door. “Your Majesty?”

  “Give this person”-I pointed at Barisha with the index finger of my left hand, an insult Skander understood and the Belagoran, unfortunately, didn’t-“a horse, and aim him in the direction of his kingdom. If he is not out of Shqiperi in three days’ time, let him be declared fair game.”

  From what I knew of the Shqipetari, there was at least an even-money chance they wouldn’t wait three days to descend on Barisha. From the look on his face, he knew the same thing. He did his best to bluster: “I shall return to this piddlepot hole in the ground at the head of an army that darkens the sun with-”

  “The flies that hover over it,” I finished for him. “If you Belagorans bathed once in a while, you’d have fewer troubles along those lines.”

  Barisha must have had some chameleon in him, probably on his mother’s side. He did a very creditable imitation of an eggplant. “Let it be war, then!” he cried, and stormed away.

  A couple of minutes after he left the throne room, Max ambled in. “Um, your Majesty, what have you done?” he asked.

  “Declared war on Belagora. Why?”