Harry Turtledove - Every Inch a King

But Max just repeated, “You’re not so tough.” He brandished his blade. “If you’re so tough,” he went on, “let’s see you do this.” He threw back his head and swallowed the sword, or enough of it as makes no difference.

The troll’s beady, bloodshot eyes went wide. He jumped up and down on the bridge in his excitement, which made those old, old timbers creak more than I wished they would. “Gimme that! Gimme that!” he shouted, and held out a spiked hand. “You’ll see!”

Max bowed and handed the troll the sword. Down the creature’s throat it went-one great thrust. And we saw. And it wasn’t pretty, I’m afraid. After the thrashing stopped at last, Max extracted the sword from the dead troll’s gullet. Eyeing the gore on it with distaste, he said, “Well, you were right. He wasn’t very smart. But I’ll really have to get this steam-cleaned before I use it professionally again.”

“I’m sorry for you,” I said.

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?”