Every Inch a King Read online

  Max gave me an odd look. “How’s that?”

  I said it again: “I’m sorry for you.” He still looked odd. He looks odd a good deal of the time, but not odd like that. I explained: “No matter how you cough, now you won’t be the first one to cut your throat from the inside out.”

  “Oh.” Max stirred the troll with his foot. It stayed dead. He shrugged. “Well, I’ll just have to live with that. And, with a little luck, I’ll go on living with it quite a while longer.” He stepped over the troll. A moment later, so did I. We crossed the bridge and headed east, toward the coast.

  To my relief, we didn’t run into any more trolls. The two we did meet seemed like about six too many. If we had encountered another one, there’s no guarantee Max’s trick would have worked again. I think the odds are decent-trolls, pretty plainly, aren’t bright, which goes a long way towards explaining why they don’t infest more bridges-but you never can tell ahead of time.

  We came down to the Tiberian Sea somewhere not too far south of Fushe-Kuqe. Don’t ask me exactly how far, because I haven’t the slightest idea. It was still beach, though-a nice stretch of sand-and not rocks. In Narbonensis and Torino and Leon, there’s a growing custom of going to the beach, taking off most of your clothes, and baking under the sun. Not in Shqiperi. Nothing there but sand…and us.

  Well, almost. Someone was walking along the sand. As Max and I got closer, we saw it was the ineffable Bob. No, I don’t know what he was doing there. I’m sure he didn’t know what he was doing there. Interviewing sea gulls and sandpipers, I suppose. I daresay he expected them to understand Albionese, too.

  I tried not to pay any attention to him. A couple of fishing boats bobbed (no, I didn’t do that on purpose-of course I didn’t) not too far offshore. I waved to the nearer one. I hallooed. I didn’t think it would take a whole lot of the royal treasury to persuade the skipper to carry Max and me across to Torino.

  Somebody on the boat waved back. Somebody else raised the sail. The boat began gliding toward the beach. Bob came up to me. “Good day, your Majesty,” he said-in Albionese, naturally. I don’t know how he recognized Max and me-maybe somebody’d told him we might be wearing native costume. That would have let him see us when we weren’t in uniform.

  “Bob, I don’t speak Albionese,” I said…in Albionese.

  The breeze gently ruffled his toupee. He frowned at me-something was going on inside his head. I hadn’t been sure anything could. But I finally found a standard of comparison for Bob: he was brighter than a troll. Than two trolls, in fact. Maybe even than two trolls put together, though I’d have a harder time proving that. His heavy features worked. “You-You just did!” he said. Point him at the obvious and shove him forward and he might-just might, mind you-flatten his nose against it.

  “Well, what if I did?” I replied, still in his language.

  “But you didn’t before.” Bob paused. I don’t believe it was in thought-the breeze picked up, and tried to pick up his not-quite-masterpiece of tonsorial artifice. He hastily jammed it back almost into place. Still, that brief gust of wind directly on his pate must have improved the functioning of the brain under it, for he came out with something that came close to counting for insight: “Or you didn’t seem to, anyhow.” His rheumy eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  I nodded in approval of his mental calisthenics. “You’re right-I didn’t seem to.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Was that a scribe’s probing inquiry or a child’s blind naпvetй? I only ask the questions-you have to answer them.

  “Because as far as I know, Prince Halim Eddin doesn’t speak any Albionese.”

  I waited again. You had to wait with Bob; nothing ever happened in a hurry with him. Except for the small language difficulty, he was made for the Nekemte Peninsula. At last, things percolated through. “Then…you really aren’t Prince Halim Eddin!” he exclaimed.

  I set a fond hand on his shoulder. “Nothing gets past you, does it?” I said.

  “That must be why Essad Pasha is so interested in finding you!” he added. It’s a good thing we have such clever scribes; otherwise no one in the world would have any idea what’s going on. Of course, by the evidence no one in the world does have any idea what’s going on. Which means…Well, you might be better off not dwelling on what it means.

  “Oh? Is Essad Pasha looking for me?” I asked, as innocently as only a guilty man could.

  “I should say he is,” Bob replied. He gasped as a new idea struck him-and well he might have, because such a thing didn’t happen every day, or every month, either. “There’s a story in this!”

  I would have told it to him. I would have been glad to tell it to him. He and the other bloody scribes had already ruined my reign. Thanks to them, I wouldn’t be a famous king. Since I wouldn’t be famous, being notorious would have to do. Yes, I would have told him everything-except that by then the fishing boat was close enough to hail.

  “Can you take two men across to Torino?” I shouted in Hassocki to the gray-bearded fellow at the bow. Bob made a frustrated noise. Why his journal sent him down to Shqiperi when he spoke only Albionese would be beyond me if I didn’t know how many of his countrymen are just as provincial as he is.

  The fisherman didn’t even blink. “Ten piasters apiece,” he called in the same tongue. That was cheaper than I’d expected. I wondered if he was a small-time smuggler who went from one coast of the Tiberian Sea to the other all the time. I wouldn’t have been surprised. Even though the price was reasonable, I haggled for form’s sake-I didn’t want him to get the idea that I had so much money, I didn’t care what I spent. After a few good-natured curses on both sides, we settled on eight piasters apiece.

  In came the boat. It looked a bit large to beach itself to take us aboard. I supposed we would have to wade out a ways and get wet. Max plunged his sword into the sand again and again to scour off the troll’s blood. I’m sure he wouldn’t have wanted to swallow it again right after that, but at least the blade wouldn’t rust.

  “I just saw a funny thing.”

  No, that wasn’t Max or Bob or the fisherman. That was a gull that had landed on the beach about twenty feet from me after gliding in from the north. I remembered the taste of dragon’s blood by Essad Pasha’s shooting box. I haven’t talked much since about understanding the speech of birds and animals for a very simple reason: most of the time, birds and animals haven’t got anything interesting to say. They might as well be people.

  I wouldn’t talk about this gull, either, except that a sandpiper asked, “What kind of funny thing?”

  The gull flicked a yellow-eyed glance toward Max and me and even Bob. “One of these useless, featherless creatures riding a horse this way, only it had two heads.”

  I didn’t think the bird meant the horse had two heads, even if it could have done a better job of straightening out its syntax. What I did think was, If Josй-Diego is riding this way, how far behind is Essad Pasha? Did I want to find out?

  “That damn fishing boat better hurry up, or we’re going to have a problem,” I told Max.

  “How do you know?” he said.

  “A little bird told me,” I answered. Max may not have known I meant it literally. He didn’t taste the dragon’s blood himself.

  But I had only a couple of minutes’ start on him, as things worked out. The gull knew what it was talking about, all right. Here came Josй-Diego riding south down the beach-and riding hell for leather on catching sight of Max and me. He-they?-shouted something in Leonese. I couldn’t quite make out what it was, but it didn’t sound complimentary.

  Here came the fishing boat. The fisherman was being cautious as he drew close to shore. Bob was standing around scratching his head-carefully, so as not to rumple his rug-and wondering what was going on. Bob spent a lot of time wondering what was going on, poor sap.

  Just as the fisherman waved to us to come aboard, Josй-Diego sprang down from his/their horse. He’s usually clumsy-Josй tells his body one thing, while Diego tells
it something else. This time, though, they were both telling it the same thing. For some reason or other, neither Josй nor Diego was very happy with me. Their body drew a dagger and charged.

  “Throw me in a dungeon, will you!” Josй shouted-I think it was Josй.

  “Lock me up, will you-with no one to talk to but him!” Diego screamed-I believe it was Diego.

  “You’ll pay for that!” they roared together-I’m sure it was both of them.

  I started to dodge. With my acrobatic grace, it should have been easy-except I stumbled in the sand. That cursed dagger caught me right in the middle of my chest.

  Yes, I’m still here. No, you don’t see dead people-I’m not ghostwriting this tale. What happened was, the blade snapped in half. Josй-Diego howled in horrified disbelief. Me? I smiled more smugly than the circumstances probably justified. But a dragon scale, even without a silver backing, is more than enough to turn any ordinary blade.

  Max tackled Josй-Diego. Down he-they?-went. I jumped on him-them-whatever you please. If I remember straight, Max pounded on Josй while I beat on Diego, but it could have been the other way round.

  After we’d knocked both heads together a few times, their arms and legs stopped paying attention to either one of him. That was what we’d had in mind. We got to our feet, brushed sand off each other, and waded out into the blue Tiberian Sea.

  Bob clapped his hands. “My,” he said, “that was exciting!” He knelt beside Josй-Diego. “Would either one of you care to give me your comments in regard to this incident?”

  Both Josй and Diego were too battered to make much sense right then. Besides, I don’t think either one of them spoke Albionese. Bob didn’t care. Well, maybe he did care, but he couldn’t do anything about it, because he didn’t speak anything else. The blind misleading the deaf, you might say.

  The fisherman reached out a hand and helped us into the boat one after the other. “North and south, east and west, you have a strange foe,” he said. “No wonder you want to put the width of the sea between yourselves and him.”

  “No wonder at all,” I said. He held out his hand, palm up. I gave him eight piasters. “You’ll get the other half when you put us ashore in Torino,” I told him.

  “Be it so,” he said, not in the least put out. “You will be a man who has traveled with strangers before.”

  “Now and then,” I agreed. “Yes, every now and then.”

  He shouted to the other three men in the boat. One worked the rudder. The other two trimmed the sails. The boat nimbly spun about and started for Torino. I waved good-bye to Bob. I don’t think he saw me. He was kneeling on the sand, still trying to squeeze a story out of Josй-Diego.

  XIX

  As we neared the Torinan coast, the skipper of the fishing boat-his name was Hysni-asked, “You won’t want to come right into a regular port, will you?”

  I looked at Max. Max looked at me. We both shook our heads, the motions so nearly identical we would have got a big laugh on any stage. “Well, now that you mention it, no,” I said.

  Hysni smiled a thin smile. “Didn’t think so,” he said. A few minutes later, he added, “Bugger customs men, anyway.” Since Max and I were carrying as much of the Shqipetari royal treasury as we could, I sympathized with Hysni’s enlightened attitude. Officials might have found some really tedious questions about the money; best to avoid all those unpleasant possibilities if we could.

  And we could. Hysni put us ashore towards evening on a beach not too far from a town-but not too close to one, either. I happily paid him the other half of our fee. He was so forthrightly mercenary, he made doing business with him a pleasure.

  “Good luck,” he said. “North and south, east and west, good luck.”

  “North and south, east and west, may good luck sail with you,” I said. He smiled. So did the other fishermen, who were his sons and his nephew.

  Max and I splashed up onto the sand. The fishing boat smartly put about and started back to Shqiperi. Watching Hysni and his kinsfolk sail west into the setting sun, Max murmured, “Poor bastards.” Max always was so sentimental.

  I poked him in the ribs. “Now,” I said.

  “Now what?” he answered irritably. “And what the demon was that for, anyhow?”

  “We went into Shqiperi,” I said. “I bloody well ruled as King of Shqiperi. We screwed ourselves silly-sillier-and we got out of Shqiperi. Not only that, we got out of Shqiperi with more than we came in.” I nudged my leather sack with the toe of my boot. It clinked softly, as if to remind Max how right I was. “Now I get to say I told you so, that’s what, and now you get to admit that I told you so, too.”

  I waited. I folded my arms across my chest so I could wait in the proper royal style. I still felt like the King of Shqiperi, even if I’d had my reign unfortunately cut short.

  “You told me so,” Max agreed. Being Max, he couldn’t just leave it at that. Oh, no. “And I told you you were out of your mind right from the start, and Eliphalet turn his back on me if I was wrong.”

  I thought about that. “Well, maybe,” I said, “but I got away with it.” I poked him in the ribs again. “I had some pretty good help, too, Captain Yildirim.”

  He poked me back. “Yes, your Majesty.” We both started to laugh. No, I’m not making that up. Max really and truly started to laugh. Twice in the space of a few days! What was the world coming to?

  After a while, I asked, “Do you want to find a town now, or do you want to spend the night on the beach and find one in the morning?”

  “I’d just as soon sleep here,” Max answered. “I’m not what you’d call hungry or anything.”

  Neither was I. Hysni had fed us well on-inevitably-fried fish. “Suits me,” I said. “This will do well enough-better than well enough-for tonight. Our clothes will dry out, too.”

  “We’ll need new ones,” Max said. “They don’t wear this kind of stuff here, and I won’t miss it a bit, either. You speak Torinan, don’t you?”

  “Sure-enough to get by with, anyhow,” I said. “They won’t think I’m a native or anything, but they’ll understand me. How about you?”

  “Maybe enough to get my face slapped,” Max replied. And how much more of a language than that do you really need, anyhow? We lay down and stretched ourselves out. The sand made a fine mattress, my sack of silver a perfectly lovely pillow.

  “More Shqipetari riffraff,” the clothier muttered, peering at Max and me around the promontory of his nose. Torinans like Shqipetari about as well as Lokrians do, and for about the same reasons: men come from the Land of the Eagle looking for work, and they steal if they don’t find it (or sometimes even if they do).

  I wanted to curse the fellow in Hassocki, but he wouldn’t have understood me. The Hassockian Empire never got to Torino, so its oaths and obscenities never got there, either. Torinans have to make do with their own set, which is distinctly impoverished by comparison.

  “Do you always try to run customers out of your shop?” I inquired in my best-indifferent-Torinan.

  “Customers?” He laughed as if I’d said something funny. “Customers have money. Shqipetari have-” I wasn’t quite sure what he said then, but I believe it involved irreverent affection for a donkey.

  “No, that was your mother,” I said. While he was still gaping, I set enough silver on the counter to make him gape in a whole new way. “Now-are we customers, or do we give our business to an honest man instead?”

  He started to reach for the silver. I started to reach for my sword. Max started to reach for his. The clothier’s hand suddenly had second thoughts. “You are customers,” he allowed, and said nothing more about donkeys. “What is it you want?”

  “Civilized clothes,” I answered, and said nothing more about his mother. “We went into Shqiperi and we got out again, and now we don’t have to look like we live there any more.”

  “You I can fit with no trouble,” he said, and then eyed Max with the dismay clothiers have eyed him with since he was fourteen years ol
d. “Your friend, I am afraid, will take a little longer.”

  “My friend is a little longer,” I agreed.

  “He will cost extra, too,” the clothier said.

  “A little extra, I suppose,” I said. “Not a lot.”

  Torinans think they’re good hagglers. Put them next to Schlepsigians or Albionese, who hardly haggle at all, and they’re right. In the Nekemte Peninsula, they’d be picked to skin and bones before they knew what hit them. I was used to playing a tougher game than the clothier. I got the price I wanted without even coming close to mentioning his mother again.

  By that afternoon, Max and I looked like a couple of men who’d just bought new clothes in a Torinan provincial town. It could have been worse. We could have gone on looking like Shqipetari.

  People gawked at Max when we bought fares on a northbound stage. But people gawk at Max’s inches even in Schlepsig, though he did seem to have more of them in Torino, where the folk are mostly shorter. And the fellow who sold us our tickets smiled at my accent. “You are from the north, eh?” he said. “You speak dialect up in that part of the kingdom.”

  He didn’t think I was a foreigner, mind. He just thought I talked funny. Well, I thought he-and the clothier, and everybody else down there-talked funny, too. It’s true that the lovely and talented lady (and she was both, dear Annaluisa was) from whom I learned most of my Torinan did come from the north. I was happy enough to follow her lead in whatever she did-you’d best believe I was.

  She didn’t slap my face, either. I was luckier with her than Max was with the girl from whom he’d learned his little bits of the language.

  And I was luckier when it came to the coach. Max eyed it with distaste. “Crammed into another bloody shoebox,” he said.

  “Would you rather stay in Torino?” I asked him.

  “Weather’s better,” he said, which is true. After you’ve sailed the Middle Sea, you can never look at the weather in Schlepsig the same way again. But in the end, he shook his head. “No, I’ll go home, too.”