We were ordered meant, It’s not our fault. It was cleverly phrased, so much so that the sergeant smiled at him, and you don’t see an underofficer smiling at an officer every day.

“Oh, very well.” By the way I said it, I’d been planning to take their heads but I supposed-just barely supposed, mind you-it wasn’t worth the mess it would make. The sergeant’s smile flickered and blew out. I went on, “Escort us, then.”

Bowing again-more deeply this time-the lieutenant said, “Yes, your Highness. Just as you say, your Highness. Please come with us, your Highness.” His knees weren’t knocking together, but they weren’t far from it.

I glanced back at Max. My face said, I could get used to this. Without moving a muscle, his face said, You are used to this, and you’d better remember it. He’s even more annoying than usual when he’s right. We followed Essad Pasha’s soldiers (my soldiers now!) into Fushe-Kuqe.

Our guides stopped at an elegant Torinan-style building next to a temple to the Quadrate God. Torino, of course, is just on the other side of the Tiberian Sea. It’s been interested in grabbing Fushe-Kuqe and all of Shqiperi for years. This proves only one thing: the Torinans haven’t taken a very good look at the country they say they want. If they had, they wouldn’t.

Several grim-faced guards stood outside the arched doorway. They looked ready to shoot anything that moved. If it didn’t move, they looked ready to shoot it anyway, just to see if putting a couple of holes in it might get it moving-at which point, they would shoot it again.

When they saw me, they stiffened to attention. They banged their heels together-a Schlepsigian style that’s caught on in the Hassocki army. “Your Highness!” they bawled, more or less in unison. That done, they goggled at Max, who towered head and shoulders above the tallest of them. He affected not to notice they existed. They were only soldiers, after all, while he was an officer. In his own surly way, he was playing his role to the hilt, too.

I, however, was a prince. I had to notice all my people, even if I knew they were beneath me. “At ease,” I told the guards, and they relaxed their brace-about a hair’s worth. I turned back to my escorts. “Take me to Essad Pasha.”

“Yes, your Highness,” they said together. The sergeant opened the door. The lieutenant bowed and gestured. Followed by my aide-de-camp-who had to duck to get under the lintel-I preceded him into Essad Pasha’s headquarters. The sergeant came last, and closed the door behind us. That sort of thing was what soldiers were for.

Stepping lively, the lieutenant got out in front of me and led me down a corridor to an airy aerie that gave a good view of the harbor. “He’s here, your Excellency!” he said, his voice throbbing with excitement.

“Well, then, he’d better come in here, hadn’t he?” a gruff voice answered. If it held any excitement, it held it very close indeed. Max coughed. Max coughs too much for his own good, but I knew what he meant this time-something on the order of, You won’t impress this fellow with your high and mighty manners.

I didn’t see it that way. If anything would impress someone like Essad Pasha, it was a prince acting like a prince. I strode into the office and stood waiting expectantly.

Essad Pasha sat behind a businesslike desk I might have seen in an office in Schlepsig. Two ordinary chairs sat in front of it. But so did piles of fringed and tasseled velvet cushions, for those who preferred to recline Hassocki-style.

Like his aerie, Essad Pasha himself was a mixture of modern East and ancient, unchanging West. He wore a dust-brown Hassocki uniform like my own; his had a major general’s two golden stars on each shoulder strap. He was about sixty, and built like a brick. I wouldn’t have cared to tangle with him, even if I had twenty years on him. His face was broad and square, with deep lines and a fierce mustache only now going gray. His pouchy, hooded eyes said he’d seen everything and done everything, and most of it hadn’t been worth seeing or doing. They said I wasn’t worth seeing, either. Max hadn’t been far wrong.

By his military grade, Essad Pasha outranked me. But I was of the blood royal-or he thought I was-and he wasn’t. He should have treated me the way he thought I deserved. When he just sat there, my blood, royal or not, started to boil. The emotion was ersatz, but it felt real. Would Prince Halim Eddin let an underling disrespect him so? Not likely! If I was Halim Eddin, would I?

“On thy feet, dog and son of a dog!” I roared. “Truly thy mother was a bitch, and thou knowest what that makes thee! Thinkest thou thy head shall not answer for thine accursed insolence?”

Now, Essad Pasha could have been rid of us with a snap of the fingers. All he had to do was say to the lieutenant, Kill them, and we were dead men. He could have, but he didn’t. It never once crossed his mind. As soon as I started shouting at him, the color drained from his ruddy face. I guess he hadn’t counted on getting a king who intended to be a king. Truly they say the Hassocki is either at your throat or at your feet.

His chair went over with a crash. He sprang upright, probably moving faster than he had in years. “Your-Your Highness!” he gabbled. “Forgive me, your Highness! North and south, east and west, I meant no harm, I meant no insult. Let the God look into my heart and see if I lie.”

“North and south, east and west, Essad Pasha, thou hast been too long in this far land,” I said. “Thou hast been a warrior, thou hast been a governor, but thou art not a king. Wert thou a king, didst thou purpose becoming a king, wouldst thou have summoned me?”

Even though I wasn’t flinging direct insults at him any more, I kept on using the second-person intimate, which was insulting all by itself to one who was neither a close friend nor a small child. I did it as if I had the right to do it. And because I did it that way, I won the right to do it.

I turned to Max. “Yildirim!” I said, giving him a Hassocki name on the spur of the moment. Maybe I was thinking of the first ship we rode, for it means thunderbolt. “Your sword, Yildirim!”

Out it came, the edge glittering. Once again, it did the trick. “Mercy, your Highness!” Essad Pasha wailed. “I abase myself before you, your Highness!” And may Eliphalet turn his back on me if the old bandit chief didn’t, going down first on his knees and then on his belly, bending his head and baring the nape of his neck. “Let your man strike now, by the God, if I mean to do you harm!”

Max took one loud, thumping step forward. “Your Highness?” he inquired, as if to say my will was the only thing in the world holding him back.

Executing the man who’d invited me-or rather, my double-here might have caused talk, especially when it would be for no more reason than that he stood up more slowly than he should have. On the other hand, the Hassocki respected shows of willful fury. I really could get used to this, I thought.

“Put up, Yildirim,” I said with a sigh, and his sword slid back into its sheath. I turned back to Essad Pasha. “Rise,” I told him. “You are forgiven-this time. There had better not be another.”

When he got to his feet, his face was the color of yogurt. Cold sweat beaded his forehead. He breathed in great, hitching gasps. He was used to putting others in fear; it must have been a long time since anyone turned the tables on him. “Truly-your Highness-is a lion-of righteousness,” he got out, a few words at each gasp.

I’d been lyin’ every inch of the way to get this far. But righteousness? Brother! “Be so good as to remember it henceforward,” I said. I hadn’t even been crowned yet, but I felt every inch a king.

I suggested to Essad Pasha that I review the Hassocki soldiers in Fushe-Kuqe. I didn’t suggest that I would turn Max loose on him if he said no. I let him figure that out for himself. He was a clever fellow; he could do all kinds of figuring for himself.