“We’re not the King of Shqiperi,” a journalist said. “We haven’t got a harem.”
“And you don’t want your wives hearing what you did do?” I suggested. That produced laughter and nudges and winks. Nobody denied it.
Well, next to nobody. “I did nothing in the nighttime,” Bob repeated plaintively. He was an old man. It might even have been true.
“You will have to draw a veil of silence around the harem,” I told the scribes, “for I do not intend to think of it further.” The real Halim Eddin would have been proud of me. The real Halim Eddin might even have assumed that, since I didn’t say anything more about the harem, the scribes wouldn’t write any more about it.
If so, the real Halim Eddin would have proved himself a naive, innocent Hassocki. I knew better. If I didn’t talk about the harem, the scribes would put words in my mouth. If they didn’t, their editors back in Albion or Narbonensis or Schlepsig or Torino would. They had to sell journals, after all. If the King of Shqiperi wouldn’t give them the copy they wanted, they’d come up with it some other way. After all, what could he do about it?
Declare war?
What a tempting thought! But Belagora lay within my reach. The idiot scribes of Narbonensis and Albion? I’m afraid not. If I could have marched a Shqipetari army through the streets of Lutetia and sacked the editors one by one, dividing all of their gall into three parts…Even more a fantasy on my part than the journalists’ slavering visions of a harem were on theirs.
“Anything else, gentlemen?” I asked, stretching a point.
There wasn’t. After war and women, they weren’t very interested in other matters. Now that I think about it, they had a point.
After the scribes trooped out, gabbling among themselves, Skander brought Essad Pasha into the improvised throne room. The former governor of Shqiperi bowed low to the master he had summoned. “Your Majesty,” he murmured.
“Good morning, your Excellency,” I said. “How are you today?”
“I am well, thank you.” Essad Pasha’s heavy features worked. “Your Majesty, did you really declare war on Belagora?”
“I’m not making this up, you know,” I said. “I most assuredly did. Why?”
“Because they’ll slaughter us!” he said.
“I doubt it. They didn’t slaughter you in the Nekemte Wars. Why should they start now? They’re only Belagorans, after all,” I said. “North and south, east and west, are there any greater cowards in all the world?”
“Well, there are the Shqipetari,” Essad Pasha said with a laugh.
Skander, hearing this, did not laugh. He quivered like a hound taking a scent and then aimed himself at Essad Pasha like that same hound getting ready to spring. Shqiperi is the land of the blood feud. Any little insult can bring it on. Essad Pasha had just insulted all the people in the land, and not in any little way. I wondered if he would get out of the palace alive. I wondered if I wanted him to.
With some reluctance, I decided I did. “Perhaps you might think about rephrasing that,” I said.
“Why should I?” Essad Pasha fleered. Then he noticed the tension in Skander’s body and the terrible intensity in the majordomo’s eyes. Like a pricked bladder, Essad Pasha’s bravado collapsed. He realized he’d stepped over a line. Now the problem was to step back without making himself out to be a worse coward than he’d called the Shqipetari.
“You might have been hasty,” I suggested.
“Mmm.” That wasn’t a word, just a noise in the back of Essad Pasha’s throat, as if to suggest he needed oiling. “Mmm.” He made it again. This time, it turned into a word: “Mmmaybe. I suppose I put it badly. If the Shqipetari were properly drilled and led and disciplined, they would be brave enough. As things are, with all their quarrels and ambushes, they don’t really get the chance to show what they could do.”
He waited. I waited. Behind me and to my left, Max waited. Skander hadn’t said a word before. He didn’t say anything now. He’d tensed all in a moment. He didn’t relax the same way. Instead, the tautness left his body inch by inch. At last, he stopped staring at Essad Pasha as if about to fling himself at the older man in the next instant.
Essad Pasha breathed then. So did I. I hadn’t realized I’d stopped till I started again. I hadn’t realized how long I’d stopped till I found out how much I needed that new breath. Life in Shqiperi is often squalid, sometimes downright nasty. It is rarely dull.
In Schlepsig, even in Narbonensis, you can go for years without being threatened with sudden and violent death. Is dullness one of the great unheralded virtues of civilization? I wouldn’t be surprised.
“Shall we get back to the northern frontier?” I asked, and Essad Pasha nodded jerkily. Since he’d just acted like a jerk, that seemed altogether fitting and proper. I went on, “Now that I’m King of Shqiperi, have the mountains up there flattened out? Have the roads got better? Have the dragons got friendlier?”
“Give me leave to doubt it, your Majesty. You are a great and mighty lord”-Essad Pasha had a certain low talent for sarcasm himself-“but you are not the Quadrate God. Or if you are, the incognito is remarkable effective.”
He could say that. If I agreed with it, even in jest, I blasphemed. I knew enough of the Quadrate God’s cult to understand as much. “No, no. I am only a man,” I said, and passed the test. “So what can the Belagorans do past making a nuisance of themselves? They’re already a nuisance, yes?”
“That they are.” Essad Pasha sighed. “I suppose the biggest worry is that Vlachia will jump into the fight, too. Vlachia lusts after Fushe-Kuqe, having no port of its own.”
Only people who’ve never seen Fushe-Kuqe could possibly lust after it. “You held them off before. I’m sure you can do it again,” I said, and Essad Pasha, no more modest than he had to be, nodded. So much for his worries, then.
One of Skander’s assistants came in and murmured to him in Shqipetari. Skander turned to me and raised an eyebrow, showing he wanted to be heard. I nodded. He spoke in Hassocki: “Your Majesty, his Excellency Vuk Nedic of Vlachia urgently requests an audience with you at your earliest convenience.”
“What about Horst-Gustav?” I asked.
More back-and-forth in Shqipetari. “He appears to have gone back to the Metropolis,” Skander reported. “He seemed unwell.”
“I see,” I said. “Well, you can send the werewolf in, then.” That sent Skander into gales, torrents, cloudbursts of laughter. He never explained why. Maybe he thought Vuk Nedic was one, too, but was too polite to say so out loud. Or maybe the idea hadn’t occurred to him till I used it. Wherever the truth lay there, he liked it. I asked Essad Pasha, “You can defend the kingdom a while longer?”
“A while longer, yes,” he replied. “Do please try not to declare war on Vlachia right this minute, though, if you’d be so kind.” Maybe Max’s coughs meant he thought that was a good idea. Maybe they just meant he had his usual catarrh. I didn’t inquire.
“I’ll try,” I told Essad Pasha. “North and south, east and west, he deserves it, though.”
“Most of us deserve a great many things, your Majesty,” he replied. “If we’re lucky, we don’t get all of them.”
Now there was a nice philosophical point. It almost made me wish I had time to discuss it. “Anything else?” I asked Essad Pasha. He shook his head. I gestured to Skander. “Show in the Vlachian.”
“Yes, your Majesty.” He’d got control of himself. Now he started giggling softly again.
Essad Pasha stumped out of the throne room as Vuk Nedic strode in. They glared in passing. Each man’s hand fell to the hilt of his sword, but they both kept walking. Looking more lupine than ever, Vuk Nedic bowed before me. “Your Majesty!” he barked.
“Your Excellency,” I said. “What can I do for you this morning?”
He ran his tongue across his lips. It seemed exceptionally long and pink and limber. When he reeled it back into his mouth, his teeth looked uncommonly large and sharp. No ordinary man should have had
those golden-brown eyes. “You have declared war on Belagora,” he growled.
“That’s true,” I said. “So what?”
“Vlachia is Belagora’s ally,” he said. “Why should we not declare war on you?”
“Because you wouldn’t get very far?” I suggested. “Because if you could have got very far, you would have done it in the Nekemte Wars? Because there would be no point to it except killing soldiers who don’t urgently need killing?”
He blinked. With those odd-colored eyes, the effect was particularly startling. My guess was, he’d never imagined soldiers might not need killing. “We could tear the throat out of this miserable excuse for a kingdom,” he snarled.
“I doubt it,” I said.
He waited. Skander waited. Even Max seemed to be waiting, though I couldn’t see him. But I’d said everything I intended to say for the moment. It was Vuk Nedic’s turn. He bared those impressive teeth again. They weren’t impressive enough to scare me off my throne. After a pack of scribes, what was one possible werewolf?
And I hadn’t even begun to find out what fangs scribes have!
Vuk Nedic growled again, down deep in his throat. “Count Rappaport is a blundering fool,” he got out at last.
Well, well! We’d found something on which we could agree! Who would have imagined it? “Why do you say so?” I asked. Always interesting to hear someone else’s reasons for despising a man you also dislike.
“Because if you were not a proper king, you would never have the nerve to defy grand and mighty Vlachia,” Vuk Nedic replied.
I didn’t laugh in his face. I don’t know why not. I merely report the fact. Max didn’t cough, either. In an experimental mood, I pulled a coin from my pocket: a good, solid silver Schlepsigian kram. I tossed it to Vuk Nedic, saying, “This for your courtesy.”
Most of the time, if you toss a man a coin, he will automatically catch it. If you toss a man who is at least part werewolf a silver coin, he will automatically catch it-and will then be sorry he has. That was what I wanted to see: whether Vuk Nedic would be sorry he was holding a silver coin.
But I never found out. The Vlach made an awkward grab for the kram, but missed it altogether. It bounced off the front of his wolfskin jacket and fell to the floor, where it rang sweetly. Before bending to pick it up, he pulled from his pocket a pair of thin kidskin gloves, which he swiftly donned. Only then did he retrieve the coin.
“I take this as one man takes a present from another,” he said. “I do not take it to mean that Vlachia is in any way obliged to Shqiperi. If my king decides to go to war alongside Belagora, you may be assured I will fight at the fore.”
“I would not doubt it,” I said, and then, “As one man takes a present from another, yes.” I’d had my question answered, all right, if not quite in the way I thought I would. As soon as Vuk Nedic stowed away the kram, the kidskin gloves came off and likewise disappeared.
After that, we didn’t seem to have anything else to say to each other. The Vlach departed. I couldn’t help wondering if the skin from which his jacket was made came from anybody he knew.
“Your Majesty.” Zogu the wizard bowed before me. “I hope my little preparation gave, ah, satisfaction last night.” He was bold enough to tip me a wink.
“I’m not complaining,” I said dryly. Max coughed once or twice. Zogu’s clever eyes slid toward him for a moment. Did the wizard know my aide-de-camp had shared the bounty? More to the point, did Zogu know what a good idea keeping his mouth shut was? I suspected he did. Mages who blab only encourage their clients to turn other mages loose on them.
“I’m glad you were pleased,” he said now. “If you were, then I take it you summoned me for some other reason?”
“You might say so,” I told him. “You will have heard the kingdom has gone to war with Belagora?”
“I think everyone in Peshkepiia will have heard it by now,” Zogu replied. “It will not hurt your name in this kingdom. Shqipetari are always at war with Vlachs, whether they have fancy proclamations or not. But what has this got to do with me?”
“The mountains in these parts are full of dragons,” I said. “I haven’t been north to the Belagoran border, but I assume it’s the same up there. Am I right?”
“I should say you are, your Majesty,” Zogu said. “And so?”
“And so there will be columns of Belagoran soldiers marching through those mountains,” I said. “Dragons might find columns of soldiers tasty any which way. Can you use your art to make sure they find columns of Belagoran soldiers especially tasty?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he cocked his head to one side, studying me. “You don’t think small, do you, your Majesty?” he said at last.
“I wouldn’t be a king if I did,” I said, which was-I hoped-truer than he knew. “Can you do this?”
“Not right here in the throne room,” Zogu said. “I’ll need a dragon scale and a Belagoran uniform even to begin the spell. Compelling dragons is a dangerous business. No one does it without the greatest need. Hardly anyone gets the chance to do it more than once. Coaxing them is commonly wiser.”
“You will know your own business best, I’m sure,” I said. “But may I ask you a couple of questions before you go about it?”
Zogu smiled. “You are the king. How can I say no?”
“Easily enough, I suspect,” I said, which made the smile wider. “If you work this magic, dragons will look to columns of Belagoran soldiers on the far side of the border, not just on ours?”
“Certainly, your Majesty,” the sorcerer said. Yes, indeed-amusement, or perhaps deviltry, danced in his dark eyes. “I presume that doesn’t disappoint you?”
“Not a bit. North and south, east and west, not a bit,” I answered. “The Belagorans are bad neighbors. One way to make a bad neighbor leave you alone is to convince him you’re a worse one. Which reminds me-do you suppose you can get your hands on a Vlachian uniform, too?”
Now Zogu laughed out loud. “I think I might be able to do that, yes.” But before I got too happy, he went on, “Most of the border with Vlachia is swamp country, not mountains. You won’t see dragons so often in those western parts.”
“Too bad,” I said, and then, “Could you make some arrangement with the leeches, maybe? They ought to be fond of Vlachs-like calls to like, after all.”
Zogu didn’t get it-and then, all at once, he did. As he wagged a forefinger at me, he made a choking noise that said he was holding in more than he was letting out. He bowed very low. “Ah, your Majesty, surely the imp of trouble dwells in your heart.”
“Surely,” Max murmured in back of me. I couldn’t even tread on his toes. The indignities a king must put up with sometimes!
“One matter we have not discussed, your Majesty,” Zogu said: “the price.”
“What?” I drew myself up straight on my rickety throne. “You would not undertake this as a patriotic duty to your kingdom?”
By the look in Zogu’s eye, if I wanted somebody to undertake something, I should talk to an undertaker-and I should talk to him about my own funeral as long as I was there. “Your Majesty,” he said in a voice all silky with danger, “wizards have to eat no less than other men.”
“Put your feathers down,” Max advised him. “He’s joking.”
Was I? Had I been? I couldn’t very well call my aide-de-camp a liar, not without starting an unseemly row. “Name your price, magical sir,” I said to Zogu, “and we’ll see how loud I scream.”
Zogu didn’t answer right away. His calculations, I daresay, were twofold: how much the magic would really cost him, and how much the traffic would bear. I, the traffic, waited apprehensively. Once he’d added up the numbers, he did name his price.
I screamed loud enough to bring not only Skander but half a dozen lesser flunkies to the throne room on the run. I hadn’t thought I could hit that high note without being treated the way poor Rexhep was. Some of the servitors had paused to snatch up implements of mayhem before they got there. S
hqipetari are always ready for brawls. Sometimes, if they can’t find one, they’ll start one for the sport of it.
Skander looked around wildly-for spilled blood, I believe. “Are you all right, your Majesty?” he panted.
“I could be worse,” I said. “The only place I’m wounded is in the pocketbook. This optimist”-I scowled at Zogu-“thinks I bleed gold.”
“Ah.” Skander paused to digest that. By his expression, he didn’t find it especially digestible. “Your Majesty has…an odd way of haggling.”
“Thank you,” I said. He blinked. One more time: if you can’t confound them, confuse them. He and the other servitors withdrew-in confusion. I nodded to Zogu. “Where were we?”
“I believe we were trying to cheat each other.” The wizard was refreshingly frank. “What price would you consider reasonable, your Majesty?”
“About a quarter of yours,” I answered.
“I see.” Zogu bowed. “Well, if I were to scream now, it would only upset your servants twice in the space of a few minutes, and for no good purpose. You may, however, take the thought for the deed.”
“Try another price, then,” I said. “Try one that doesn’t make me want to shriek.”
He did. I opened my mouth again, melodramatically but, I confess, silently. Max coughed. Max always thinks I overact. This, from the greatest ham not sitting on a dinner plate! No one gets the respect he deserves.
Zogu appreciated my performance, and he was the intended audience. Mirth sparked in his eyes. “Your Majesty is not the common sort of king,” he said, something of which for one reason or another I was often accused during my reign.
I did my best to look regally severe. “And with how many kings have you consorted?” I asked.
“I’m not interested in consorting with them.” By the way Zogu said it, he could have had tea with monarchs every day if he cared to. He went on to explain why he didn’t: “The King of Belagora is a bore, and the King of Vlachia is a boor.”
“You left out the King of Lokris,” I said.
“Excuse me. You are correct. The King of Lokris is-a Lokrian. I shall say no more.” And Zogu didn’t, not about that. Shqipetari love Lokrians even more than Lokrians love Shqipetari. You think it couldn’t be done? Well, I thought so, too.
Every Inch a King Page 24
