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 m
e 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.
XVIII
After we’d put a mile or so between ourselves and Peshkepiia, Max said, “Well, you haven’t got us killed yet. I don’t know how you haven’t or why you haven’t, but I’m still breathing.”
“Keep it up,” I said. “I noticed you were rather vigorous about it the past four nights.”
“I’ve passed evenings I liked less,” he said, and I knew that was as much as I’d get out of him.
“Back to Fushe-Kuqe, then,” I said. “Passage on the first ship that’s going anywhere. And a story to dine out on as long as we live-and the money to dine pretty well.”
“Assuming we live long enough to be able to dine at all.” No, that wasn’t Max being gloomy. He was looking back along the road we’d just traveled. Only a troop of horsemen riding hard could have kicked up that cloud of dust.
We were standing in the shade of a mulberry tree. “Sit down,” I hissed to Max. “That way, they won’t need to be as blind as Bob not to notice how tall you are.”
“No, but we’re still dead if they talked to the old bugger who sold us this clobber,” Max said. I never needed to worry when he was around-he was so much better at it than I’d ever be. He sat down even so, and I stretched out beside him.
Up rode the cavalrymen, with much jingling of harness and what have you. They were going at a fast trot, and they paid us no particular attention. “What do we do if we catch this fellow who was calling himself king?” one of them asked.
“Take him back to Peshkepiia.” The man who answered looked and sounded like a sergeant. No one was going to get any nonsense past him, not if he could help it. “Then we give him to Essad Pasha.”
“Oh, they’ve got him moving again?” the curious cavalryman said.
“Would he want that other bugger if they hadn’t?” Why do sergeants answer questions with questions? Oh, there I am doing it myself. Well, I’ve been a sergeant, too. I’ll tell you, kinging it is better.
“What if-?” I couldn’t make out the rest of what the first horseman said; the jingling and the clop of hoofbeats drowned out his words. Then the cavalry troop was gone, riding east.
Max looked after them. “Nice to know they remember you.”
“Yes, isn’t it?
” I sounded as bland as I could.
That wasn’t very; Max wouldn’t let it be very. “Do you suppose they hired Zogu to thaw Essad Pasha out?”
There was an imperfectly delightful thought. I managed a smile in spite of being imperfectly delighted. “Well, what if they did?” I said. “The only thing better than getting paid is getting paid twice.”
“The only thing better than getting paid is getting laid,” Max returned.
“Well, we did that, too, by Eliphalet’s holy foreskin,” I said.
“It wouldn’t have done him much good if it wasn’t holey.” Max is a blasphemous cactus.
I climbed to my feet. I picked up my sack full of silver-and the odd bit of gold, and the occasional jewel. I had only memories to remind me I’d got laid. The sack told me loud and clear that I’d got paid. Max grunted as he hefted his. It might have been heavier than mine. For all I knew, he’d got paid better as a king’s aide-de-camp than I had as his majestic Majesty. Was that enough to make him stop grumbling? Not likely!
“On to Fushe-Kuqe!” I said.
But we never got there.
Half an hour after that first cavalry troop jingled and clattered past us, another one rode by. Again, we plopped down by the side of the road and pretended to be lazy, good-for-nothing Shqipetari peasants-but I repeat myself. Again, the Hassocki rode by without giving us a second glance. They were still after King Halim Eddin and Captain Yildirim, not Otto of Schlepsig and Max of Witte, to say nothing (which is about as much as should be said) of Fatmir and Beqiri-or pick two other Shqipetari names that suit you, if you’d rather.
We kept going in spite of that. Half an hour later, though, another troop went by. This one was loaded for bear, or more likely dragon. At its head rode Essad Pasha, looking grim. Half a pace behind him and to his right rode Colonel Kemal, looking determined. A whole pace behind him and to his left rode Major Mustafa, looking angry. Directly behind him, on a distinctly spooked horse, rode Josй-Diego, looking, respectively, furious and murderous.
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