Every Inch a King Read online

  “Gentlemen, I am at your service. Ask of me what you would,” he said. He bowed and straightened and bowed again.

  I didn’t ask him anything at once. I was too busy staring. I saw at once why the roly-poly Hassocki had sent us to him. He had to be an inch or two taller even than Max. The two of them were also staring at each other. Very tall men aren’t used to running into people their own size. They need to decide who’s bigger and how surprised they’re going to be about it.

  “Have you by any chance a Hassocki captain’s uniform to fit my friend?” I asked.

  He broke out laughing. “I do,” he said. “I do. By Zibeon’s forelock, I do. I have the very thing.” I reminded myself he was a Lokrian, and so unlikely to know better. I also reminded myself how big he was. Taller than Max! Who would have believed it? He went on, “During the, ah, late unpleasantness I purchased this from an officer desirous of decamping in such secrecy as he might-though when a man is of his stature, or mine, or your friend’s, secrecy is hard to come by. Later”-he preened his mustaches between thumb and forefinger-“I had occasion to wear it, to personate the fled Hassocki and lure his comrades out of a strong and safe position. This I accomplished.” He stood even straighter than usual.

  So the uniform had already been used in one masquerade, had it? A paltry scheme next to mine-but still, I took it for a good omen. I said, “May we see this famous outfit?”

  Manolis bowed once more. “Certainly, my master. Certainly. But what ails your friend? Can he not speak for himself?”

  “No,” Max croaked. “I never learned how.”

  The Lokrian broker scratched his head, tugged at his mustaches again, and disappeared into a back room. He returned with a neatly folded dust-brown uniform. Unfolded, it did indeed prove suitable for a man of Max’s inches. The sleeves and trouser legs were slightly too short, but only slightly. It fit Max a good deal better than it would have Manolis, who was not only taller but wider through the shoulders and had the beginnings of a paunch. Imagining Max with a paunch is like imagining a nightingale with a bagpipe. I doubted the Hassocki who saw Manolis in disguise were inclined to be critical. Anyone who could wear that uniform without turning it into a tent had to carry conviction.

  I spoke next with a certain amount of worry: “Ah, how much might you want for such an item, O most heroic and valiant one?”

  “Well, I had not really purposed selling it at all,” Manolis replied. “My thought was to save it for my grandchildren, a token of the time when Thasos passed out of slavery and into freedom.” Half the city’s populace would have juggled nouns and prepositions there, but never mind. He continued, “If I were to sell it, I should need to be suitably compensated for the future loss to my heirs and assigns.”

  “What do you reckon suitable compensation?” I inquired, more cautiously yet.

  He named a price. I did not faint. I do not know why I did not faint. I merely state the fact. He added, “I suspect you may encounter a certain amount of difficulty finding such a uniform here or elsewhere.”

  I suspected he was right. No, I knew too well he was right. Nevertheless, I said, “And I suspect you are a saucy robber. Dust-brown cloth is cheap as pistachios in Thasos right now. I could have a tailor make me a uniform for half what you ask.” That would still cost too much and take too long, something Manolis did not need to know.

  He scowled down at me. A fearsome scowl from such a giant would have put most men of ordinary size in fear for their lives. I, however, am bold beyond the mean-and used to Max scowling down at me. Again, the hair of the dog that now could not bite me. Seeing me unafraid and unabashed, Manolis named a more reasonable figure. I named one in return. “Why, thou brazen son of a poison-tongued serpent!” he cried.

  “Impute to me not thy parentage,” I said sweetly.

  “Thou admittest thy brazenness, I see, which is as well, for thou wouldst prove thyself liar as well as cheat didst thou seek to disclaim it.” Manolis scowled again, and clenched his big fists. When I still failed to wilt, he came down some more.

  We haggled through the morning. Just after he called me something too infamous even to repeat, he poured coffee for Max and me with his own hands. Both the insult and the coffee were politenesses of the trade. As noon approached, we struck a bargain. It was more than I wanted to pay but less than a tailor would have cost me: not perfect, but good enough. In this sorry world of ours, good enough is…good enough.

  Manolis’ sigh would have sailed a schooner halfway to Vyzance. “Thus vanishes a part of Thasos’ history, and a grand part, too.” My silver also vanished, into a stout cashbox he kept under the counter. So much for history, at least to the Lokrian.

  As for me, I had all I could do to keep from jumping in the air and clicking my heels together as we left the house of the three gold globes. Manolis might have thought he was making history with the tall Hassocki’s uniform, but Max would really do it. (Of course, he would be but a footnote to my reign, but even so…)

  His own view of all this was rather less exalted. “Nice to know I’ll be properly dressed for my execution,” he remarked.

  “If you get any more cheerful, I don’t know how I’ll be able to stand the joy,” I said.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Is that what they call sarcasm?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never heard the word before. What does it mean?” I said.

  Max pondered that. It seemed to satisfy him, for he nodded. “Where now?” he asked.

  “Why, the port,” I said. “Unless you’d rather go to Shqiperi by land, that is.”

  “I don’t much want to go to Shqiperi at all,” he said.

  Normally, this is a sentiment with a great deal to recommend it. In fact, almost the entire world has wanted to avoid the Land of the Eagle throughout its history, which is how the Shqipetari have ended up living there. Nevertheless, going by land, through the sputtering remains of the Nekemte Wars, struck me as an idea singularly bad even by the standards associated with Shqiperi. “The port,” I said again, and set off toward the sea. Max? Max followed me.

  People write poems about the open sea: the waves and the wind and the soaring gulls and I don’t know what all else. I’m a showman, not a poet. But I do know one thing: nobody in his right mind pens poems about a harbor.

  For one thing, it’s hard to wax poetic about stinks. The open sea smells fresh and, well, oceanic, at least till you go belowdecks. The port of Thasos, on the other hand, smells like the Darvar River, which runs into it. And the Darvar River, not to put too fine a point on it, smells like sewage.

  Along with this ruling theme, there are grace notes: bilgewater from the ships tied up at the quays, essence of unwashed sailor, cheap perfume from the joy girls the unwashed sailors seek, the occasional dead dog or dead body, and other stenches, reeks, and miasmas. My asthma would have been very bad there, if I’d had any to begin with.

  Shqiperi’s chief port-indeed, for all practical purposes, Shqiperi’s only port-is the grand metropolis of Fushe-Kuqe, which is every bit as famous and magnificent as the fact that you’ve never heard of it would suggest.

  The harbormaster was a lean, weathered Hassocki named Bayezid. He looked like a recently-perhaps too recently-retired pirate. A big gold hoop glittered in his left ear. His right earlobe was oddly scarred and shriveled, as if a big gold hoop had been removed from it by force. He, unlike you, had heard of Fushe-Kuqe; his job involved knowing the ports around the Middle Sea, even the sleepy and obscure ones.

  When I said we wanted to go there, he raised an elegantly plucked eyebrow. “You do?” he said. “North and south, east and west, my masters, why?”

  “To put on a performance-a special performance,” I replied, which was true enough. All the same, Max choked slightly.

  Bayezid affected not to notice. “You will know your own business best, I am sure,” he murmured, and I’ve never been called an idiot more politely. He gathered himself. “There is, I fear, no way to book passage straight from Thaso
s to Fushe-Kuqe. Commerce between the two cities…Well, to be candid, there is no commerce between the two cities.”

  Max brightened, no doubt hoping he was off the hook. I contrived to tread on his toes, not too hard. “There is bound to be a direct route from Thasos to Lakedaimon,” I said.

  “Oh, yes.” The harbormaster nodded and looked pained at the same time. I might have known he would: Lakedaimon is the capital of Lokris, and he could not have felt too kindly toward Lokrians just then. He proved as much, in fact, continuing, “Had you come here a week later, I daresay you would have found a man from that other kingdom”-he wouldn’t even dignify Lokris by naming it-“in my place. He might have been able to find Fushe-Kuqe on a map, assuming he could read. But as for getting you there…” That elegant eyebrow climbed again.

  “Since we are lucky enough to have you in his stead, your Excellency, perhaps in your sagacity you will be able to assist us.” Hassocki is almost as good for flowery compliments as it is for insults.

  Bayezid bowed. “I am your slave.” He pointed to a pier a furlong or so to the west of his cramped and tiny office. “Yonder lies the Keraunos. The name means Thunderbolt in that kingdom’s tongue. She sails for Lakedaimon at the fourth hour of the afternoon, and is due there at the same time tomorrow.” His eyebrow went up once more. “She will be late. I hope she will not be too late to keep you from catching the Halcyon, which sails for Fushe-Kuqe at midnight from the Quay of the Red-Figure Winecup.”

  He checked no references, no schedules or almanacs or anything of the sort. He knew. I didn’t envy the Lokrian who would replace him, even if the man was good. Bayezid was a lot better than merely good.

  “What if we’re too late to catch the Halcyon?” I asked.

  “North and south, east and west, all is as the Quadrate God wills,” the harbormaster said, which told me less than it might have. But he went on, “Three days after that, my master, the Gamemeno sails out of Lakedaimon from the Quay of the Poxed Trollop. After, ah, several stops, she too will put in at Fushe-Kuqe.” Again, no books, but he knew.

  That sounded inauspicious. Max summed up just how inauspicious it sounded by asking, “Is she a smuggler or a pirate, the Gamemeno?”

  “Yes,” Bayezid answered.

  “Well,” I said as brightly as I could, “we’ll just have to hope the, uh, Keraunos won’t be late.”

  “Good luck, my friend,” Bayezid said, plainly meaning, You’ll need it. He added one word more: “Lokrians.” From everything I’ve ever seen, Lokrians are not the most punctual people in the world-and, as a man of Schlepsig, I ought to know a thing or two about punctuality. From everything I’ve seen, though, Hassocki are the one folk who might out-delay Lokrians. I somehow doubted the curse of tardiness hovered over Bayezid’s head, but it does afflict his countrymen.

  When I tried to tip the harbormaster for his trouble and his help, he turned me down flat. Truly he was a man in a thousand. I don’t think I’d ever met a Hassocki who wouldn’t pocket a little baksheesh before. Come to that, plenty of Schlepsigians wouldn’t have been sorry to listen to a few extra coins jingle in their pockets. But he told me no-Eliphalet be my witness. If the Lokrians sacked him, their new man would have made them sorry in short order.

  Max and I walked up the quay to the Thunderbolt. Bird droppings dappled the planks under our feet. A pelican glided by overhead, looking like a gull apprenticed to a dragon. Seeing something that size on the wing made me glad I had a hat.

  “Ahoy!” I called when we got to the ship. I must say its appearance didn’t live up to its name. It was beamy and weary-looking, with untidy rigging and a crew who couldn’t have been more than two steps up from pirates. Half of them wore earrings to put Bayezid’s to shame.

  The skipper, however, had on a uniform with more plumes and epaulets and tassels and-rather tarnished-gold braid than the Grand High Admiral of Schlepsig’s. Old Forkbeard, of course, commands ships of the line and frigates by the score, whereas this fellow had the Keraunos, Prophets help him. He looked down at us with no great liking from under the brim of his three-cornered hat and asked, “What you want?” in fair Narbonese.

  “Passage to Lakedaimon, sir,” I answered in the same language.

  He sized us up. I did the same with him. He was a sour, pinch-faced fellow heading into middle age and no happier about it than anyone else. Calculation glittered in his eyes, which were set too close together. Judging what the traffic will bear, I decided. The fare he named showed he’d misjudged it-either that or greed had got the better of him.

  I bowed. “Good day to you, sir, and may your voyage be prosperous,” I said. “We are not murderers on the run, to take passage regardless of the price. Let’s go, Max.” We started back toward the harbormaster’s office.

  “Thou wouldst suck seeds from a sick sow’s turds,” he said in Hassocki, before adding, “Do not go,” in Narbonese.

  I spoke in Hassocki, too: “An I did, I’d kiss thy mother.” I did wait, to see what would happen next.

  Those close-set eyes widened. For a moment, I thought he’d turn his cutthroats loose on Max and me, but he decided it was funny instead and laughed his head off. “The foreign gentleman took me by surprise, knowing this language so well,” he said, speaking Hassocki far more fluently than he did Narbonese. He added something in gurgling Lokrian that probably meant, Do you understand my language, too? I just dipped my head the way Lokrians will when they mean yes and looked wise. He could make whatever he wanted of that.

  He didn’t haggle so hard in Hassocki as he would have in Narbonese. My knowing one of the local languages made me seem less foreign to him. I wasn’t someone who existed only to be gouged. We got a cabin for a pretty good rate.

  The sailor who led us to the cabin spoke some Hassocki. “Is crowded space. You two fit?” He sounded genuinely anxious for our comfort, no matter how villainous he looked. I don’t know if he was, but he sounded that way.

  “If I don’t break my skull on these cursed beams beforehand,” Max grumbled. The Keraunos’ corridors and passageways were not made for a man of his inches. In fact, they weren’t made for a man of my inches, and I own fewer than Max. He had to walk stooped over whenever he was belowdecks, and the crossbeams or whatever you call them were a special hazard. No matter how careful he tried to be, he banged his head two or three times before we got to the cabin.

  “Is all right?” The sailor opened the door. We ducked inside.

  It was crowded. No room to swing a cat, I’ve heard sailors say. Why anyone would want to do that to a poor harmless cat is beyond me, but never mind. Next to the room we don’t have in a circus wagon, though, that little cabin might have been a palace. As a matter of fact, it was nearly as grand as the Shqipetari royal palace, but I didn’t know that yet.

  I reached into my pocket and gave the sailor the two coins I pulled out: a piaster and a semilepta. He bowed like a folding jackknife. “Zibeon’s blessings upon you, my master!” he said, and scurried away. I would rather have had Eliphalet’s, but in that part of the world you take what you can get.

  You also do your best to make sure other people don’t take what they can get-or, rather, that they can’t get it. I had the lock that kept light-fingered strangers (and, no doubt, light-fingered acquaintances, too) out of my wagon when I wasn’t around. I wasn’t worried about taking it. Whoever Dooger and Cark hired to replace me would have a lock of his own. I put it on the cabin door now. It was cold iron, so I hoped it would be proof against wizardry as well as lockpicks.

  “Do you suppose it’s the fourth hour of the afternoon yet?” I asked Max.

  He looked out the little round window-all right, the porthole; I’m no sailor, and I don’t pretend to be one-to gauge the sun. “Getting close, anyhow,” he answered.

  “Does it seem we’re about to leave the harbor?”

  He shook his head. A ship’s crew always goes a little mad when they set sail or weigh anchor or do whatever they need to do to start. I don’t know w
hy they need to weigh the anchor; isn’t knowing the bloody thing’s heavy enough? But when they do it, people run every which way and shout like men possessed. If the wind isn’t favorable, and it usually isn’t, the weatherworker stands at the stern to call it into the sails.

  In the old days, you just sat there if the wind wasn’t favorable. You could sit there for weeks if luck went against you. And if the wind died while you were at sea, at sea you’d stay. Weatherworking is one of the marvels of the modern age, but most people take it for granted. It’s a good thing the Two Prophets lived long ago; nowadays, everyone would yawn at the miracles they worked.

  No weather was being worked at the stern. Sailors weren’t running back and forth above our heads. I know the sound-it puts me in mind of a herd of shoes. Nobody was shouting. As if to prove the point, a tern a gull had robbed of a fish screeched furiously.

  “Maybe we ought to see what’s going on,” I said.

  “I can see what’s going on,” Max said. “Nothing, that’s what.”

  Sometimes Max can be annoyingly literal. “Maybe we should find out why nothing’s going on,” I said. Max only shrugged. I asked him, “Do you really want to get stuck in Lakedaimon for days?”

  He jumped to his feet-and banged his head. After rubbing the latest bruise, he said, “Lead on-carefully, if you please.”

  I carefully locked the cabin door behind us. We made our way to the steep stair that led us up on deck. Max hit his head once more, but only once. Considering how low the ceiling was, that amounted to a triumph of sorts. By then, though, Max was thoroughly out of sorts. He breathed a sigh of relief when he could unfold himself on deck.

  The captain was drinking coffee and smoking a pipe with a long stem and a bowl carved into the shape of a leaping dolphin. It looked very nautical. Anyone who didn’t know better would think he’d got it from some clever, grizzled Lokrian craftsman who’d taken weeks to shape it especially for him. Unfortunately, I did know better. Any Schlepsigian would. We use the law of similarity to turn out those pipes by the tens of thousands for home use and the export trade. About every fourth man in Schlepsig smokes one. So it goes.