Every Inch a King Read online

  He laughed. Getting a laugh out of Max isn’t easy. I laughed, too, at the look on his face when he realized I wasn’t joking. “Well, there’s a record!” he said. “You haven’t had a crown on your head more than a few hours, and you’ve already started a war? I can think of a lot of kings who’d be jealous, I can.”

  “Your Majesty!” Skander sounded scandalized. “Is this-this personage allowed to speak to you so?”

  That made Max laugh again. “You try and stop me, pal!” A warning of this sort from an officer six feet eight inches tall and armed with a sword does carry a certain persuasiveness. Skander sent me a look of appeal.

  “My aide-de-camp means well,” I said, and don’t think that didn’t made Max laugh one more time. “Sometimes I find it useful to employ a man who enjoys full freedom of speech.” Sometimes, even before I was royal, I found it a royal pain in the fundament, too. But I didn’t tell that to Skander.

  “Yes, your Majesty.” My majordomo’s tone suggested that I was eating with my fingers and didn’t know any better. When I showed no sign of ordering Max drawn and quartered and placed outside the palace as a warning to others, Skander threw his hands in the air and stalked off. All things considered, he made a better exit than Barisha had.

  “You really declared war on Belagora?” Max said. I nodded, not without pride. He, by contrast, shook his head. “How are you going to fight it?”

  “Don’t be silly,” I answered. “Nobody can fight a proper war in those mountains. The Belagorans and the Hassocki have just spent months proving it. Why should things be any different now?”

  “Because you’re in command instead of old Essad Pasha?” Max suggested. “What you know about running an army doesn’t exactly fill up the Encyclopaedia Albionica.”

  All at once, drawing and quartering Max looked much more attractive. I thought about calling Skander back. If he knew a reliable wizard, he probably knew a reliable executioner, too. But thinking of Zogu and his magic made me decide to try to distract Max instead. Execution is so…permanent.

  I told Max about the sorcery, adding, “I’m going to have Rexhep bring some of the harem girls to the royal bedchamber tonight.”

  “Are you?” Max said. That got his attention, all right.

  “Of course I am. What else would a king do? Insult the poor dears by leaving them lonely? What sort of cad do you think I am?” I held up a hasty hand; Max was liable to answer that. Having forestalled him, I went on, “Rexhep may fetch more girls than even a king can handle, all in one night.”

  “You expect me to take care of your leftovers?” Max asked haughtily.

  “Well, unless you’d rather not,” I replied.

  Now he was the one holding up a hand. “I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything like that.” He got sensible mighty fast. Somehow, I thought he might.

  “All right, then,” I said. “We’ll see how that goes after the sun sets.”

  I waited to find out what happened next. What happened was that Max, realizing which side his bread was buttered on, bowed very low. “Thank you, your Majesty,” he said. All of a sudden, he didn’t care so much about war with Belagora.

  And do you know what else? Neither did I.

  I don’t remember much about the rest of the afternoon. After war and the harem, not much seems important. I think Jean-Jacques-Pierre-Roland called on me. I can’t begin to tell you why. Narbonensis is a long way from Shqiperi. Any civilized kingdom is a long way from Shqiperi. And Narbonensis is friendly toward Vlachia and Belagora, which only goes to show all its taste is in its mouth.

  Maybe he wanted to tell me not to go to war against Belagora. That makes as much sense as anything else, and more sense than a lot of things I can think of. I can’t prove it, though. And if Jean-Jacques-Pierre-Roland had any sense to start with, what was he doing in Shqiperi?

  Not long before supper, I heard screams and the clash of cutlery-I hoped it was cutlery, not swords-from the kitchens. I sent Skander off to see who’d murdered whom, and why. When he came back, he reported, “Nothing to worry about, your Majesty. Only a disagreement. No blood.”

  “No, eh? By the noise, I expected you’d be wading through it up to your knees.” My answer was punctuated by more shouts and the ringing of steel on steel. With a sigh, I said, “You must have hired the cooks from the Metropolis.”

  “How did you know, your Majesty?” I think it was the first time I impressed Skander as myself and not as King of Shqiperi.

  Supper was…what you would expect with a bunch of Shqipetari cooking it. Fried chicken, which again wasn’t bad-though fried chicken feet were something I’d never tried before. (And, remembering my little love fest with Barisha, I kept wondering where the fowl came from.) Fried potatoes, once more pretty good, even if we’d be likely to boil them in Schlepsig. Fried squash, which was-well, better than it sounds, anyway. Fried lettuce, about which I draw a merciful veil of silence.

  By Eliphalet’s beard, if they had ice cream in Shqiperi they would fry that. They’ve never heard of it, proving mercy still does stream down from on high.

  As the meal came to its greasy conclusion, I turned to Max and said, “Captain Yildirim!”

  “Yes, your Majesty?” Max gives nothing away, not even to himself.

  “Attend me in my quarters, if you would be so kind,” I said. “We can smoke a pipe together and study the best way to drive the Belagoran curs off our soil.” I got that out with a straight face. I really did.

  “Yes, your Majesty.” Despite the uniform he wore, Max was and is about as military as your cat. Soldiers make other people swallow their swords. Max swallows his own. Need I say more? But, again, no one who didn’t know him would know that. Skander and the servants who cleared the table looked very impressed.

  One of the servants, in fact, was so busy sneaking glances at Max that he knocked over a goblet he should have picked up. It fell off the table and smashed. The servant turned pale. So did his friends. They muttered in Shqipetari.

  “Mercy, your Majesty!” Skander begged. “Mercy!”

  What was I supposed to do, cut off his hand? Cut off his head? By the fear in their eyes, maybe I was. I started to laugh and tell them not to worry about it. I started to, but I didn’t. Shqiperi is the kind of place where they see kindness as weakness. “Take it out of his pay,” I told Skander. “It had better not happen again.”

  “No, your Majesty. Of course not, your Majesty. Thank you, your Majesty,” Skander said. The servant bowed very low indeed. I did it right.

  I nodded to Max. “Shall we go, Captain?”

  “Certainly, your Majesty,” he said. “You are as merciful as you are kind.” I’ve never known a man who could pay a more venomous compliment.

  Have you ever seen a sorcerous print of one of those Narbonese paintings that imagine what the Hassockian Atabeg’s bedchamber looks like? They’re all carpets and cushions and silks and gauzy curtains and polished brasswork and bright colors and clashing patterns. I don’t know what the Hassockian Atabeg’s bedchamber really looks like; the authentic Halim Eddin may, I suppose.

  Mine looked like…one of those paintings. Not one of the good ones, where everything seems elegant and expensive, but the tasteless kind, where all the furnishings look as if they’re one step-and a small step, at that-up from what a whorehouse would have. All that was missing were the naked girls.

  They weren’t far away, though.

  Max looked around as if he couldn’t believe what he saw. I didn’t blame him; I had trouble believing it, too. He waved. “How are you supposed to sleep with all this going on?”

  “This place mostly isn’t for sleeping,” I answered.

  “Well, how are you supposed to do that with all this going on?” he said.

  I tucked the eagle stone stuffed with Zogu’s, ah, condiments under the bed. “I have hopes of finding out,” I told him. “And you may rely on it that there are plenty of girls in the eunuch’s care for both of us.”

  “Ah.” Ma
x brightened, as much as Max ever brightens. “You mean you didn’t ask me here to help you figure out how to fight your stupid war against Belagora?”

  “If I ever need a general bad enough to look to you, my kingdom is in more trouble than it knows what to do with,” I said with dignity.

  “If it’s got you for a king, your kingdom’s already in more trouble than it knows what to do with,” Max retorted.

  “Thou cowardly hind, thou art the veriest varlet that ever chewed a tooth,” I said. I love Hassocki…endearments.

  “Oh, be still, thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou!” Max said. Oh, yes, I love Hassocki endearments-except when they come back at me.

  We slanged each other for a while. Then we smoked pipes together: the long Hassocki-style pipes called chubuks. After we’d smoked a bit, I stopped caring whether we’d been throwing darts back and forth. Whatever we were smoking, I don’t think it was just tobacco. In the Hassockian Empire and other western lands, they will sometimes mix hemp or hashish in with their smokables. I resolved to ask Skander if he’d done that for me. Somehow, I never did.

  I kept forgetting.

  I didn’t forget the harem girls, though. Whatever we were smoking, it didn’t bother that side of things at all. On the contrary, in fact-or maybe Zogu’s magical stone, now that it was in place in a bedchamber-was starting to do its job. After some searching in that garish room, I found a closet. Right behind the door, it held half a dozen iridescent silk robes, which clashed with one another and with everything around them-not easy, but they did it.

  The closet also held Max, even if he had to duck to get in. “Now stay there till I let you out,” I told him.

  “All right,” he said, “but if you think you can get away with diddling the girls while I listen, your Majesty, forget it.”

  Yes, I’d thought about that again, but I tossed it aside the same way I did the first time it crossed my mind-I can’t imagine a better excuse for an assassination. So I said, “No, no,” as if the idea had never once-let alone twice-occurred to me. “I didn’t bring you here to screw you, Max.” That seemed to mollify him. I closed the closet door, which all but disappeared, and I called for Skander.

  “Yes, your Majesty?” As he had in the throne room, he seemed to come out of nowhere. One thing I will say: when you wanted him, you didn’t have to wait around for him.

  “Go to the harem door. Tell Rexhep to bring me Lutzi and Maja and Bjeshka and Varri and Zalli and Shkoza.”

  “Certainly, your Majesty. Are you sure they’ll be enough for one evening?”

  If I’d ever thought Skander a man without sarcasm, I had to revise my opinion. The only way to top him was to pretend I didn’t notice he didn’t mean what he said. In my blandest tones, I answered, “Well, if they’re not, Rexhep can always bring me a few more, eh?”

  Now Skander had to figure out whether I meant it. He couldn’t. I was a performer in front of an audience, and that was all I needed to hold up a mask to the world. Balked there, Skander started a new hare: “Where is Captain Yildirim, your Majesty? Did he leave your chambers?”

  Just when you wish things would be simple once in a while…“Of course he did. He’s not here, is he? He must be back in his own rooms by now.”

  “I’d better check,” said the conscientious-the much too bloody conscientious-Skander. “You wouldn’t want him sneaking into the harem while Rexhep brings you your ladies, would you?”

  “No, I wouldn’t want that.” I want to share them with him right here. “But I don’t think he’d do anything like that.”

  “You never know,” Skander said darkly. “Let me go see. I’ll be back directly.” And away he went.

  I couldn’t even tell him no. He would wonder why if I did. No proper Hassocki gentleman, let alone a high Hassocki nobleman like Halim Eddin, would have protested even for a moment. Those who follow the Quadrate God take the harem seriously. If I was going to be Halim Eddin, I had to…pretend, anyhow.

  The much too bloody conscientious Skander returned almost as fast as he’d promised. “I am glad to be able to tell you, your Majesty, that you seem to be right,” he said. “Captain Yildirim did not respond to my knock, but, as his door is barred from the inside, I have no doubt he is indeed in the room. After all he ate at supper, he must have decided to turn in early.”

  Barred from the inside? Max is a resourceful man, but how the demon had he managed that? “All right, then,” I said, a remark that means nothing but bought me a heartbeat or two to think. Even after whatever I’d smoked, I knew what I was supposed to be thinking about, too. “Go speak to the eunuch. You do remember the women I asked for, don’t you?”

  “Lutzi and Maja and-” He bogged down. “I am so sorry, your Majesty.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I could afford to be magnanimous, because I was showing I was smarter than he was. “Lutzi and Maja and Bjeshka and Varri and Zalli and Shkoza.” I brought out the string of names with no hesitation. I’m not in the same league with the memorious Funes, but I’m pretty good.

  “Bjeshka and Varri and Zalli and Shkoza. Bjeshka and Varri and-” Skander repeated the names over and over to himself as he walked down the hallway. I hoped he wouldn’t forget Lutzi and Maja. I especially hoped he wouldn’t forget Lutzi. She wouldn’t have been a sovereign’s mistress in the Dual Monarchy or Narbonensis, but she might well have been a duke’s.

  Nothing to do but wait and hope Zogu’s spell lived up to my anticipation. Not knowing just when Rexhep would appear, I couldn’t go to the cleverly concealed closet and ask Max what he’d done and how he did it. A time for everything, I thought.

  When Rexhep led the girls to my room, they were veiled and cloaked against men’s prying eyes. “Here you are, your Majesty,” he said in that cool, sexless voice. “Do you require anything else of me?”

  I wondered what he was thinking. No, looking into his eyes, I didn’t wonder-I knew. The question wasn’t whether he hated me, but how much. “No, that will be all for now,” I told him. “I’ll summon you when I need you to take them back.” I just wanted him to go away. Can you blame me? Thinking about eunuchs at a time like that? Thanks, but I’d rather not.

  Rexhep didn’t want to be there as much as I didn’t want him there, maybe more. “Very well, your Majesty,” he said, and withdrew. It wasn’t very well, not for him. Nothing would ever make it very well, either. Away he went, tall and thin and proud-and damned, or as near as makes no difference.

  I closed the door to the bedchamber and barred it from the inside. (How had Max done that?) Then I bowed to the girls. “No one here will have to do anything she doesn’t enjoy doing,” I promised. “The idea is for us to have a good time-for all of us to have a good time. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, your Majesty,” chorused Lutzi and Maja and Bjeshka and Varri and Zalli and Shkoza.

  “Good.” I smiled at them. They had to be nervous. The only way they had to my heart wasn’t through my stomach, but by a more direct route. They didn’t know what strange tastes I might have. For that matter, they might not know which tastes were strange and which weren’t. Had Essad Pasha recruited a couple of dozen true maidens for me? I’d find out. I smiled again. “You may unwrap yourselves, my dears. Nobody”-well, almost nobody-“here but us.”

  And so they did. What they had on under those cloaks was a good deal skimpier and more transparent than what they’d worn when I called on them in the harem. Maja and Zalli were either natural blondes or thorough. I didn’t care which, not a bit.

  “May I ask you something, your Majesty?” Lutzi said.

  I bowed again. “Of course, sweetheart. In a little while, I expect I’ll ask you something, too.”

  She blushed. With what she was almost wearing, I could watch the blush travel a long way. I don’t know when I’ve had a more pleasant contemplation. She said, “One of you and six of us, your Majesty?” All the girls leaned forward to hear what I’d say about that. They seemed to have some notion of what was
what, anyhow. That was nice.

  “Do you think I can’t do you all justice?” I asked.

  “Oh, no, your Majesty!” “Of course not, your Majesty!” “You are the king, your Majesty!” They all denied it: much squeaking and twittering, many artfully shocked expressions. What they meant was, You haven’t got a prayer, your Majesty.

  Maybe they were right. No-certainly they were right, even with Zogu’s spell. But I had something better than a prayer. I had a friend. I said, “My loves, my aide-de-camp and I go back a long time together. We’ve guarded each other’s backs through years of dangers.” That not only sounded good, it had the added virtue of actually being true. I went on, “He having shared danger with me, the least I can do is share my reward with him. And so I have the honor and privilege to present to you…the valiant Captain Yildirim.”

  I opened the closet door. Max came out and bowed. Lutzi and Maja and Bjeshka and Varri and Zalli and Shkoza all squealed. For one thing, as I’ve said, Max is very, very tall. For another, while in the closet he’d contrived to rid himself of anything he wouldn’t need later: his uniform, for instance. He emerged wearing nothing but a smile.

  It occurred to me that I was the only one wearing anything significant-surely the only one wearing anything beyond the decorative. I didn’t need long to divest myself of the problem, to say nothing of my pants. After a bow of my own, I waved grandly toward the broad, inviting bed. “Well, my lovelies, here we are. We have one another, we have all that room, and we have plenty of time. Shall we make the most of them?”

  We did our best. You will have seen a kaleidoscope, I suppose. They’re clever little toys. All the wizards I know insist they’re not magical, even if those clever mages can’t tell me how they do work. The little chunks of polished stone and colored glass inside them move, and when you look through the other end you watch the colors and the pretty patterns shift.

  You will have seen a kaleidoscope, yes. But have you ever imagined being part of a kaleidoscope display, making pretty patterns and shifting from this one to that one to the next one as the whim-or the next beckoning partner-takes you? I’ve done some interesting, enjoyable, and complicated things in my time. Nothing I’ve ever done comes close to that evening for being all three at once.