Every Inch a King Read online

  “Would that Zibeon and Eliphalet gave me a pile of stones, of conformation like unto thy brainpan, that I might build me of them a rock garden in the courtyard of my home,” he sneered.

  “Go to kennel, thou who wast born betwixt two stockfishes,” I replied. “Why revilest me so?”

  “Should a fool not be reproved for his folly?” Tasos said. “We may outfly any pirate ship, aye. But catapult darts or stones? Fireballs? Arrows? Should one smite the weatherworker-” His hand twisted in a gesture designed to turn aside the evil omen.

  “Oh.” I did feel the fool. If any of those misfortunes befell Stagiros, the Gamemeno was, well, gamemeno’d. I rallied as best I could: “Surely you will have another man aboard who can call the wind.”

  “Surely I will. Surely I do,” Tasos said. “But, while many men can work the weather, how many can work it like Stagiros?” He spread his hands, waiting for my answer. I had no answer to give, and I knew it. Tasos’ second-best weatherworker wouldn’t match some pirate’s best. And so…he watched the jagged coast. Every time we darted past a headland or the valley where some stream came down to the sea, he muttered and played with worry beads while sweat ran down his face.

  So much for honor among thieves. I wondered what a Lokrian Navy cutter would do if it came across the Gamemeno’s crew battling it out with cutlasses and crossbows and cantrips and counterspells against pirates. I know what I would have done if I were the skipper of a Lokrian Navy cutter. I would have laughed and closed my eyes and sailed away, hoping they slaughtered each other till not a man survived on either side. The more who fell, the better off the kingdom would be.

  But I wasn’t a Lokrian Navy cutter captain. I was, Eliphalet help me, a passenger on this miserable Lokrian smuggler. And so, whenever we passed a headland or a little valley, I muttered while sweat ran down my face, too. I had no worry beads, but found I was able to worry quite well without them.

  We put in for the night at a village called Skilitsi. I’ve looked for it since on a map. I’ve looked for it on several maps, as a matter of fact. As far as mapmakers know, it isn’t there. I wonder if the King of Lokris knows anybody lives in Skilitsi, or even that there is such a place. What you don’t know about, you can’t tax. The folk of Skilitsi struck me as being less than enthusiastic about contributing to their kingdom’s general welfare.

  If you blink while you’re going by, you’ll miss the place. That’s what the people who live there have in mind. A big rock in the sea and groves of olives and almonds screen it off from the casual eye. If you don’t already know where it is, you won’t find it. And if you don’t, nobody in Skilitsi will care.

  Tasos knew it. As soon as we skimmed between that big rock and the mainland, Stagiros let his wind die. The Gamemeno glided to a stop. Tasos shouted orders. The anchor splashed into the sea.

  Rowboats approached from the shore. Tasos turned to Max and me. “Why don’t the two of you go below?” he said pleasantly. “What you don’t see, you can’t testify to, and no wizard can pull it out of you, either.”

  It sounded like a polite request. It was a polite order. Tasos had several burly sailors behind him. None of them was as large as I am, let alone Max, but they made up in numbers what they lacked in beef. “I think we’ll go below,” I said, sounding cheerier than I felt. “Don’t you, Max?”

  “Just what I always wanted to do,” Max agreed, as excited as if he’d got an invitation to his own funeral.

  Down to our cabin we went. Belowdecks on the Gamemeno left all sorts of things to be desired. The ceilings weren’t tall enough for me, let alone poor Max. Several nasty odors filled the air. Some had to do with cooking, others with foul heads and unbathed men. Still others…I don’t know what all the Gamemeno was smuggling, but some of it smelled bad.

  Poor Captain Tasos was a busy man. I didn’t want to upset him by reminding him that our cabin, while it didn’t have much, did boast a porthole. And, since we were on the right side of the ship (oh, fine, the starboard side, which happened to be the correct side, too), we could watch what was going on as well as if we’d stayed on deck. We could, and we did. Poor Captain Tasos.

  It was a lot less exciting than one of Ilona’s tumbling routines, believe me. Lokrians rowed out from Skilitsi with crates and jugs and barrels. They rowed back with barrels and crates and jugs. I presume they sent the ship this and took away that, but I couldn’t prove it.

  As it got darker, we had a harder time seeing what was going on. We would have quit if Tasos hadn’t wanted to keep us from watching. And how many times have you done something because somebody told you not to?

  Oh, more than that. You must have.

  For whatever it was worth, we finally got our reward. We saw something more interesting, or at least more unusual, than jugs and barrels and crates. I stared as a bigger boat than most came up to the Gamemeno. “Is that what I think it is?” I whispered.

  “I don’t know. What do you think it is?”

  “A coffin.”

  “Well, it could be,” he said cryptically.

  And it was. The obscenity and blasphemy from the deck came in eight or ten tongues, and would have fried the beards off both Prophets if they’d been alive to hear it. The oarsmen in that big rowboat added their fair share, too. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the corpse sat up and tossed in his hemilepta’s worth.

  At last, once the shouting died down to aftershock levels, they rigged a block and tackle on deck and hauled the coffin up from the boat. Thud! It made a dreadfully final sound when it came down on the planking-right over our heads, by the sound of things.

  Max cocked a wary eye at our ceiling, which went on creaking. “If that comes through-” he began.

  I shrugged. “If it does, we’ll be too flat to worry about it.”

  “You always did know how to relieve my mind,” he said.

  We looked out the porthole again, but the coffin proved to be the grand finale. The boat that had brought it took back a load of illegal, immoral, untaxed…stuff. It grounded on the beach. The rowers unloaded it and dragged it ashore. No more boats came out.

  Max closed the porthole. There were mosquitoes outside. As soon as he closed it, we discovered there were mosquitoes inside, too, but there were more of them outside. “So much for the exciting life of a smuggler,” he said. “It’s like watching grass dry.”

  “Or paint grow,” I agreed. “What have we got for supper?”

  He rummaged through his kit and pulled out what looked like a flexible billy club. “Mutton sausage.”

  “Better than nothing,” I said, giving it the benefit of the doubt.

  And it turned out to be quite a bit better than nothing. Say what you will about the Lokrians-and I’m one of their most sincere unadmirers-they do make good sausage: another tradition going back to the golden age of Lakedaimon, if you remember your comic poets.

  Full darkness fell, fast as a drunk tumbling down a flight of stairs. Twilight lingers romantically in Schlepsig. The sky goes through every deepening shade of blue and purple toward black. Stars come out one by one. You can count them if you like, and you don’t have any trouble keeping up.

  Nightfall in Lokris isn’t like that. The sun goes down. It gets dark, and wastes no time doing it. You look at the sky and you don’t see any stars. Ten minutes later, billions and billions of them are up there. Where were they hiding? How did they all come out at once? You can see more of them in Lokris than you can in Schlepsig, too. The air isn’t so misty-and, except when they’re having a riot, it isn’t so smoky, either. But I think our stars are more intriguing. You have to earn them. They aren’t just there, the way they are in Lokris.

  You’d think the moon, seen through a porthole, would fill that round window with its round self. You’d think so, but you’d be wrong. The moon looks so big hanging there in the sky, especially when it’s just rising or about to set. But if you hold a kram or a livre out at arm’s length between your thumb and forefinger, you can make the moon disa
ppear behind it. I was surprised when I found that out. You will be, too. Well, actually, you won’t be, because now I’ve told you, but you would be if I hadn’t. Of course, if I hadn’t, you wouldn’t have tried such a silly thing in the first place, would you?

  Up on deck, one of the sailors was-praying? I wished I understood Lokrian. But it might not have mattered here. With the porthole closed, the rhythm of his speech came through better than the actual words. I did think I heard Zibeon’s name a few times. That was…interesting. “A pious smuggler?” I murmured.

  “Probably asking for blind customs inspectors,” Max said.

  If I were a smuggler-and I have been, on a small scale, a time or three-I would ask for something like that, too. (And if customs inspectors aren’t blind, silver has been known to weight down their eyelids.) But a prayer like that is a businessman’s prayer, not one that comes from the heart or the belly. Somehow, the Lokrian sounded more as if he meant it. I don’t know the language, but the tone came through.

  When I said so, Max only shrugged. “Maybe he’s slept with someone’s wife here. Or, since it’s Lokris, maybe he’s slept with someone’s husband. Do that and you’ll pray like you mean it.” He yawned. “Whatever he’s praying for, it’s got nothing to do with me. I’m nobody’s husband-and nobody’s wife, either. What I am is somebody who’s about to go to sleep.” He yawned again, wider than before.

  We got out of our fancy duds, put on our nightshirts, and made ourselves as comfortable as we could in the short, narrow berths. Mine wasn’t big enough for me. Max’s was much too small for him. Most beds are. He has two choices. He can fold himself up like an inchworm or he can let big chunks of himself part company with the mattress. He twisted and wiggled. After a while, I heard a foot thump on the deck, so I knew he wasn’t imitating an inchworm tonight.

  Along with being short and narrow, my mattress was lumpy. That was of a piece with everything else I’d seen on the Gamemeno-everything except Stagiros, who was in a class by himself. But I didn’t want to sleep on the weatherworker, or even with him. My tastes along those lines are boringly normal.

  After some little while, I was able to keep my eyes closed without having their lids jump and twitch, the way a child’s will when he’s pretending to be asleep. Max still wiggled not far away, but I’d heard him do that before. I’ve fallen asleep in the middle of a barracks hall full of Hassocki soldiers who’d had a supper of beans. After that, one oversized sword-swallower with a cough wasn’t so much of a much. Before long, I stopped hearing him or anything else.

  I don’t know how long I’d been asleep when someone knocked on the cabin door. I did my best not to hear that, too; for a moment or two, I turned the noise into a dream about woodpeckers. One of them was pecking on my wooden leg, which would make better sense if I had a wooden leg. Like most circuses, Dooger and Cark’s has a wise woman who will take your money and tell you what your dreams mean. Ask yourself this: if she’s so wise, what’s she doing at Dooger and Cark’s? If you really need to find out about your dreams, pay a little more and go to a mage who might actually know.

  Then the woodpecker said, “Otto? Wake up, you bloody bonehead!” I didn’t think a woodpecker ought to say something like that, even in a dream. Wouldn’t an angry woodpecker call me blockhead instead?

  I opened my eyes. That wasn’t a woodpecker looming over me there in the darkness-that was Max, breathing sausage breath into my face. And somebody was knocking. I breathed back at him: “Do we ignore that, or do we open it and break something over the stinking whoreson’s head?”

  “If I could have ignored it, I’d still be sleeping,” he said. If I could have ignored it, I’d still have had a woodpecker drumming on the wooden leg I don’t own. There are worse things, I suppose, but lots more better ones.

  With a sigh, I got out of bed and advanced on the door. Some advance-it must have been a good pace and a half. Even on ships a lot fancier than the Gamemeno (which is to say, most of them), cabins are cramped. Ours there had more room than a coffin built for two-I had to be thinking about the one that came aboard a few hours earlier-but not much.

  Even as I reached for the latch, the knocking stopped. Whoever was on the other side, he knew I was reaching. How did he know that? I opened the door, and I found out.

  There he stood, in the narrow little passageway. He was perfect-but then, he would be. Ruffled shirt. Cravat. Tailcoat-he might have been about to sit down at the harpsichord. He might have been, but he wasn’t, because…Bloodless face. Red, glowing eyes. Oh, yes, and the obligatory fangs, too.

  Vampire.

  I should have known. So should Max. The Nekemte Peninsula has more undead than just about anywhere else. Vlachian vampires. Yagmar vampires (not Ilona, a warm-blooded wench if ever there was one). Dacian vampires, including the famous Petru the Piercer. Not so many Lokrian vampires. Lucky us.

  Those terrible eyes grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. “May I come in?” he asked in some language I could understand-I didn’t so much hear his words as feel them in the middle of my head. They have to be invited in. They can’t cross the threshold unless they are.

  “Yes,” Max and I breathed together. Under the spell of those glowing eyes, what else could we have said? Nothing at all. A vampire needs an invitation to come in, sure, but that doesn’t mean he won’t cheat to get one. “Yes,” we breathed again.

  But the vampire didn’t come in. The light in his eyes went out. He gagged and hacked and coughed. If you’ve ever seen someone who’s never smoked before take an enormous puff on a strong cigar, you have some small idea of how the vampire acted. He fled down the corridor as fast as he could go, silent as the ghost of a cat. I wondered if he’d make it back to his coffin or fall over somewhere and lie there till the sun came up the next morning. I knew what I hoped.

  I turned to Max at the same time as he was turning to me. We both started to laugh. Up in Schlepsig, we flavor lamb and mutton with mint. I think I said that once before. The Lokrians use garlic. The Lokrians use garlic, lots of garlic, in almost everything. They’d put garlic in apple strudel if they made apple strudel.

  “Well,” I said, “shall we go back to bed?”

  “Just a minute.” He rummaged in his wallet, took out some silver coins, and stuck them in the crack between the door and its frame.

  “I thought silver kept werewolves away,” I said.

  “It can’t hurt,” Max answered. “And how do you know this miserable scow isn’t smuggling werewolves, too?”

  I scratched my head. He was right. I wouldn’t have put smuggling anything at all past Tasos. Just by way of example, he was smuggling the King of Shqiperi and his aide-de-camp into the Land of the Eagle, wasn’t he?

  Maybe the silver worked. Maybe the vampire had just had a noseful of us. Either way, he didn’t bother us again. If he drained the rest of the crew dry-well, we’d have to figure out some other way to get to Shqiperi, that’s all.

  When we came up on deck the next morning, we were chewing on more sausage-just in case, you might say. Captain Tasos seemed surprised to see us. Then he got a whiff of our breakfast, and he didn’t any more. “I trust you had a pleasant night?” he said, a certain gleam in his eye. After the vampire’s glowing gaze, Tasos’ gleam wasn’t anything special.

  “You’re a trusting soul, then, aren’t you?” I pointed to the coffin. “Chain that up. Put roses and garlic on it. We want no more visits in the nighttime.”

  “He is a paying passenger,” Tasos said. “He pays better than you do, in fact-he pays in gold.” So maybe there was something to Max’s silver coins after all.

  Whether there was or not was something I could worry about later. “Whatever he’s paying, it’s not enough to let him suck the blood out of your live customers.”

  Tasos stirred, as if he wasn’t so sure about that. Whatever he might have said, though, he didn’t. Max was wearing his sword. I wasn’t sure he’d ever sliced anything more dangerous than bread with it, but Tasos wasn’t s
ure he hadn’t. For an overgrown bread knife and theatrical prop, it was proving mighty persuasive.

  “Chain it up till he gets where he’s going,” I repeated, and pointed to the coffin again. Then I took a step towards it. “If you don’t chain it up, I’ll open it. Why should you care? You’ve already got his passage money.”

  Tasos tossed his head, where someone from another kingdom would have shaken it. “I don’t dare open it,” he said. “If I did, they would know, and they would have their revenge.”

  He sounded as if vampires were some sort of secret society, like what they call Our Thing in Torino. He also sounded as if he knew what he was talking about. We don’t have vampires in Schlepsig, except for the few who’ve settled there to take advantage of the longer winter nights. We have werewolves and unicorns and trolls and dwarves and elves and gnomes and cobolds and all sorts of other wildunlife, but not vampires. I can’t say we feel the lack, either. Even though I’ve traveled around a good deal in kingdoms where they don’t live, I don’t know them the way somebody like Tasos would-he grew up with them, you might say.

  “All right. If you won’t open it, you won’t. But chain it up and ward it,” I said, adding, “If you don’t, and if anything happens to me and my aide-de-camp, the Shqipetari will find out, and they’ll have their revenge.”

  That was inspiration, nothing less. Tasos flinched. Lokrians think Shqipetari are passionate, faction-ridden feudists, bushwhackers and bandits and thieves, grifters and liars and cheats-pretty much what the rest of the world thinks of Lokrians. From everything I saw in Lokris, I’d say the rest of the world has a point. From everything I saw later in Shqiperi, I’d say the Lokrians have a point, too.

  Max smiled his most sepulchral smile. “Would you rather have your throat punctured or just slit? Would you rather have your blood drunk or just spilled?”