“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 Thasos 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.