Every Inch a King Read online

  Not being acquainted with my comrade (save as someone who almost took his head: a limited and one-sided relationship), Essad Pasha didn’t know that meant Max thought I was getting onto thin ice. “Your Highness, I had thought to bring you into Peshkepiia in two or three days’ time for the ceremony, with perhaps a dragon hunt in the hills beforehand, if that should please you,” he said.

  “A dragon hunt would please me well enough,” I said-not the smallest understatement of my career. There aren’t many places outside the Nekemte Peninsula-and not so many in it, not in these modern times-where you can hunt dragons in the wild. That the dragons are also hunting you adds a certain spice to the sport. But I couldn’t let Essad Pasha off easily, and so I asked, “Why the delay?”

  Now he coughed, with a delicacy Max couldn’t have matched. “Please forgive me, your Highness, but it was only yesterday when I learned you were arriving. I confess to not yet having fully recruited the requisite royal harem.”

  “The-royal harem?” I echoed, and Essad Pasha nodded. A pace behind me and a pace to my left, Max didn’t cough, but his breathing picked up. I said, “Well, in that case, your Excellency, I think the small delay may be excused.”

  Essad Pasha bowed. “You are gracious.” His smile had a certain I-don’t-know-what about it. Well, actually, I do know what. It was a leer.

  Now, harems are right out as far as followers of the Two Prophets go. Eliphalet had only one wife. Zibeon had only one wife. The Goddess is only one Wife. I don’t see how the rule could be any plainer than that. Rule or no rule, though, my coreligionists have been doing what they wanted to do and what they thought they could get away with doing for a good many years-or should I say a good many centuries?

  If I’d spoken to a prelate, I think I could have got a dispensation. I was, after all, impersonating a personage who followed the Quadrate God. His followers have silly, cumbersome rules of their own, but not about wives. Their only rule there is if they can afford it, they can do it-and do it, and do it, and do it.

  To this very day, the Hassockian Atabeg’s harem is legendary for the beauty and variety of its inhabitants. Every so often, some madman inflamed by lust will try to sneak in. The Hassocki don’t kill such adventurers when they catch them. No, indeed. They let them go-minus a few important bits. Nobody tries to sneak into the harem more than once.

  I didn’t suppose Essad Pasha could find me that sort of quality in this backwoods excuse for a kingdom. But I did want to make sure he would be diligent. “I look forward to, ah, evaluating the recruits,” I said.

  “I shall do everything I can to give satisfaction, your Highness. And so will the girls, I assure you.” Yes, Essad Pasha definitely leered.

  “You lucky bastard,” Max hissed when the erstwhile governor of Shqiperi turned away. My mother and father were married. To each other, in fact. Except for that, I wasn’t inclined to argue with him.

  VIII

  Along with a suitable escort, I rode out of Fushe-Kuqe with Max and Essad Pasha the next morning. The Shqipetari in the port seemed remarkably indifferent to their new sovereign’s departure. Well, one sweeper did wave as I rode by. I think he waved. He might just have had something in his eye.

  The Land of the Eagle has some stunningly majestic scenery. Shqiperi is not a very large kingdom. The landscape is large, though, large enough to dwarf mere mortals and their works. Roads seem nothing more than thin lines drawn across that immensity. Well, the fanciest roads in Shqiperi are narrow, rutted dirt tracks, which has something to do with it. But the fanciest modern Schlepsigian carriageway would seem lost and tiny amongst those mountains.

  They rise row on row, tier on tier, climbing halfway up the sky and more. Till their midsections, they are the pale green of meadows and grainfields. Then the dark green of pines and firs takes over, then the gray of bare rock, and then dazzling white snow. That that snow on those jagged peaks reminds one-this one, at least-of a shark’s teeth is perhaps better not dwelt upon. I certainly tried not to dwell on it, but I didn’t have much luck.

  No wonder dragons live in those mountains. The country is made for them. The wonder is that people live there. North and south, east and west, men with crossbows were watching us. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel their eyes on the back of my neck.

  “You must not be sorry to walk away from rule over a land like this,” I remarked to Essad Pasha.

  He gave me an odd look. Of course he was sorry to walk away from rule. To his way of thinking, only an idiot wouldn’t be. He would cheerfully have thrown me in that group if I hadn’t cowed him. After a couple of heartbeats, he took the meaning I’d intended. “Yes, the Shqipetari can be difficult,” he said. “They would have stuck more knives in our backs if they weren’t so busy stabbing one another.”

  His wave encompassed that awe-inspiring landscape. Despite the sunfire flash off the jewels in his rings, he made me see the mountains and, here and there in the distance, the villages that perched on them like scabs on a mangy hound. Every house was a fortress, not to ward the men and women from the ravages of the Hassockian Empire-of which there were plenty-but to protect them from their own kind.

  Shqiperi is the land of the blood feud. Lokrians have things they call blood feuds. So do Torinans. The Hassocki claim them, too. But they’re all amateurs. The Shqipetari, now…The Shqipetari mean it.

  If someone from your clan has killed someone from my clan, my whole clan has an obligation to kill someone from your clan for the sake of vengeance. It can be-it often is-someone who hasn’t the least idea some hotheaded distant cousin of his has landed him in a small-scale war. That doesn’t make him any less dead when my clansmate happens to come upon him on a road or lies in wait for him behind a rock. And then, of course, his clan being the most recently injured party, my kinsmen go in fear by day or night till one of them lies bleeding-or sometimes two or three.

  These feuds go on for years, for generations, for centuries. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them go back to the days before the ancient Aeneans brought the Dalmatians to heel. Conquerors come and conquerors go, but feuds drag on forever.

  “I should do something about that,” I said.

  Essad Pasha laughed out loud. I glowered at him. Max coughed and touched the hilt of his sword. Essad Pasha stopped laughing more abruptly than he’d started. “I crave your pardon, your Highness,” he said. “And I wish you good luck.”

  The blood feud flourishes in Shqiperi to this day. But then, I-alas!-am king there no more. Who knows what a golden age the Land of the Eagle lost in me!

  After a couple of hours in the saddle-long enough for me to begin to feel how little riding I’d done lately-Essad Pasha waved again. Blinking against the refulgent glitter of those gemstones, I needed a moment to realize the castle toward which he pointed wasn’t one of the many the Shqipetari had built to protect themselves from themselves. This one was of rather better design, and had evidently gone up to protect foreigners from them.

  “My shooting box,” Essad Pasha said with becoming immodesty. I raised an eyebrow. I waited. Max didn’t even have to cough. Essad Pasha made haste to correct himself: “Your shooting box, your Highness.”

  “Thank you,” I replied, as if I’d expected nothing less. “I look forward to shooting dragons.” Max coughed then. Looking back on it, I suppose he had just a bit of reason for coughing, too. Yes, just a bit.

  As those things go, the shooting box was comfortable enough. Despite the Albionese name, it did not have an Albionese cook, for which I thanked the Two Prophets and the Quadrate God impartially. Any kingdom that will boil bacon doesn’t deserve to be allowed anywhere near a fire.

  Instead of an Albionese, the cook was an elderly Shqipetari woman with, I regret to report, a mustache not much smaller than mine. Her methods had peculiarities of their own. The salad she gave us, with olives and crumbled white cheese, was not much different from what we might have got in Lokris, though the dressing, with pungent wine vinegar and a strong inf
usion of mint, had a tang I’d never met anywhere else.

  After that…Well, how do I explain it? Where an Albionese will throw anything this side of his mother into boiling water, a Shqipetar will fling it into bubbling oil. Maybe this has to do with how the two folk fought off besiegers in years gone by. Or maybe the Shqipetari try to imitate the wild dragons of their mountains. I don’t know why they do it. No one can doubt that they do it.

  It’s not all bad. Fried capon, such as we had that night, can be quite tasty. (It can also come dripping enough grease to keep a carriage from squeaking for a year.) Fried beefsteak, on the other hand, is the first step toward making leather, and the less said of fried mutton, the better.

  No one will complain of fried potatoes with plenty of salt. The Shqipetari prefer bread made from coarsely ground maize flour to the usual sort made of wheat. They fry that, too, after baking it. The result would ballast a three-masted ship of the line. It stays with a mere mortal for days, if not for weeks.

  They fry okra. Having said that, I draw a merciful veil of silence.

  Our supper came with a bottle of brandy made from mountain plums and, by the potency, a good helping of mountain lightning, too. Essad Pasha ceremoniously poured glasses of the stuff for himself, Max, and me. I waited to see if he would take care of that the usual way. Followers of the Quadrate God may have as many women as they please, but they aren’t supposed to drink. To my mind, this demonstrates the fundamental falsity of their faith. Name me a man with as many women as he thinks he wants who doesn’t need to drink now and again.

  Of course, some who reverence the Quadrate God are no better than they have to be. (I might say the same of some who reverence the Two Prophets. I might, but I won’t.) Essad Pasha handled things with catlike aplomb. He crooked the little finger of his right hand like an Albionese taking hold of a teacup. Then he dipped the crooked finger into his glass. He brought up one sparkling drop of brandy on the end of his finger and ceremoniously flicked it away: no, he wouldn’t drink that drop. The rest? Well, the rest was between him and the Quadrate God.

  You don’t always see that ritual. In the lower ranks of the Hassocki army, as in the lower ranks of any army, soldiers drink first and worry-or, more likely, don’t worry-about it later. My own pinkie, and Max’s, also bent, also dipped. We flicked. We drank.

  After the first sip, my eyes crossed. Lightning in a bottle indeed. I eyed the glass respectfully, wondering why the brandy hadn’t charred through it.

  Max, however, sent Essad Pasha a reproachful stare. “You ought to fire your cellarer,” he remarked in his usual sepulchral tones.

  “Oh? For what reason, Captain?” Essad Pasha sounded wary.

  “Why, for watering the spirits, of course.” Max drained his glass without so much as a blink. It was not a small glass. No, not at all. He wasn’t pretending here, the way he had with Tasos.

  Essad Pasha goggled. Then he tried to do the same thing. He choked. He spluttered. He sprayed brandy down the front of his uniform tunic. Max took it all in stride. Why not? He pours swords down his throat, by the Prophets’ curly whiskers. Pretending not to notice Essad Pasha’s problem, he poured himself another glass and drank that down, too.

  I love Max. Whenever I can stand him, I love him.

  I also know better than to get into a one-downsmanship contest with him. Aside from his scarred gullet, there’s more of him to soak up the spirits than there is of me. There’s more of Max than there is of almost anyone. A glance will tell you this. A glance should have told Essad Pasha. But no. Something-perverse pride, I suppose-made him try to drink along.

  He did stop spraying spirits down his front. In short order, though, he started spilling them down his front instead. I hoped he would change his tunic before we went hunting the next morning. Any dragonfire within miles would send him up like a torch if he didn’t. For that matter, I was glad he didn’t choose to smoke.

  He tried to tell me something. He raised his right hand, index finger extended as if to make a point. But his eyes glazed over and he started to snore. I wondered what to do with him. He wouldn’t be happy if he woke up in the dining room. Then again, after what he’d poured down, he wouldn’t be happy no matter where he woke up.

  While I was still wondering, three stalwart Shqipetari silently slipped into the room. One took each booted foot; the third dealt with Essad Pasha’s forward end. They lugged him away with an ease that bespoke considerable practice. Maybe he didn’t need Max for an excuse to drink himself into a stupor.

  One of the Shqipetari returned. “If the noble lords will please come with me…?” he said in oddly accented Hassocki.

  I had no trouble getting up and walking: I’d been at least moderately moderate. Max ambled down the corridor without eight or twelve Shqipetari hauling him along, too. We shared a bedchamber. As he was my aide-de-camp and, presumably, bodyguard, I wasn’t surprised that the servants at the hunting box had arranged things so. I was surprised they’d found him a bed without a footboard. That saved him the trouble of sleeping curled up or diagonally, which he usually has to do.

  “Well, between us, we’ve put Essad Pasha in his place,” I remarked as we undressed for the night.

  “Ah, but will he remember in the morning?” Max replied.

  “He won’t remember anything in the morning,” I said. “And what he does remember, he’ll want to forget.” Max scratched his head at that. After a moment, I scratched my head, too. Not even the (still uncrowned) King of Shqiperi could make meaning appear out of nothingness. I could make sleep appear, though. I lay down-and there it was.

  Essad Pasha poured down cup after cup of thick, sweet, strong, muddy Hassocki-style coffee. It did wake him up, which only made him more poignantly aware of his state of crapulent decrepitude. His hand shook. He didn’t spill coffee on his tunic, though-he had a napkin draped over it this morning.

  Max also seemed somewhat the worse for wear, but did manage to eat his-inevitably-fried eggs. I enjoyed mine. Essad Pasha’s sat on his plate, staring up at him. The whites of his eyes were almost as yellow as their yokes. He belched softly. Sometimes, among the Hassocki, a belch shows you’ve enjoyed a meal. Essad Pasha’s showed that his insides were as rebellious as the kingdoms of the Nekemte Peninsula.

  “North and south, east and west…” he began, and belched again. He shuddered. “In any direction, in every direction, I am unwell.”

  “Perhaps the hair of the dog that bit you,” Max said. After a moment, he added, “Perhaps the hair of the dog that bit me, too.”

  “’Twas no dog bit me-’twas a viper,” Essad Pasha said. But then he brightened all the way up to suicidal. “Perhaps the scale of the snake would serve.”

  He shouted to the servant who’d brought in breakfast, but flinched from the sound of his own voice. More quietly, he put his request to the man. In due course, a bottle and three glasses appeared. After flicking away the ritual drop, Essad Pasha and Max proceeded to have several scales apiece. I drank a bit, too-just to be sociable, you understand, and as a digestive aid.

  Essad Pasha’s cheeks regained some color. Up till then, he’d looked as if he’d been staked out for vampires. He even toyed with his eggs, though he didn’t actually eat much. He said, “Now when we hunt the dragons, I may hope we catch them, and not the other way round.” Maybe he really had been suicidal, then. If a dragon caught him, he might not go out in a blaze of glory, but he would certainly make an ash of himself.

  After breakfast, he showed us our weapons. No clockwork mechanism on these crossbows-they were hand-cranked, the way they all were till fifty years ago. With these, if we all shot our bolts and missed, it would be the dragon’s turn for quite a while after that.

  On the other hand, the quarrels we shot would take the quarrel out of a dragon or anything else if they struck home. They were large and stout and heavy: rather like shooting Essad Pasha out of a crossbow, as a matter of fact, though they weren’t so blunt.

  He sent me a sidelong g
lance as I picked up my crossbow and rather dubiously stared along it. “Your Highness’ marksmanship is renowned all through the Empire,” he remarked. “We shall rely on you today.”

  “Of course we will,” Max said. What he didn’t say was, Now look at the mess you’ve got me into-and yourself, by the way. His eyebrows and the corners of his mouth were uncommonly eloquent, however.

  If you can keep your head while all around you are losing theirs, you probably don’t understand the situation. Here I at least thought I did. I’d never shot this particular heavyweight monstrosity, but I did know what to do with a standard military crossbow…and the Hassocki Army had taught me. My marksmanship might not have been renowned all through the Empire, but I generally managed to frighten what I aimed at.

  Then again, aiming at a dragon frightened me.

  Essad Pasha pointed northward. “Do you see, your Highness? Dragons in their courting flight.”

  By the way they spun and skipped and tumbled through the air, I had taken them for ravens. If they were that much bigger, then they were that much farther away-where that much meant a demon of a lot. And they were, for I saw one of them swoop behind a mountain peak. I could make a pretty fair guess about how far away that peak was. That made the dragons even bigger than I’d thought. Oh, joy, as Max would say.

  Out tottered a white-mustached Shqipetari shepherd, a man who’d seen a better decade or six, leading a sheep with very little to look forward to. He tied it to an iron stake set securely in the ground, gave it a couple of tender pats on the head, and then cut its throat. Somehow, that spoke volumes to me about the way Shqiperi works.

  The shepherd stumped away. The sheep lay there, twitching and bleeding. I suppose things could have been worse. If they hadn’t left it out for dragon bait, they probably would have fried its wool and served it up to Max and me as a delicacy of the countryside.