Harry Turtledove - Every Inch a King

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.

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.