Gathering the troops together took a couple of hours. It shouldn’t have. Essad Pasha should have had them ready for me as soon as I stepped off the Gamemeno. I let him hear about that, too. He went pale again: not quite yogurt color, but about the shade of a man’s teeth after he’s smoked a pipe for fifty years. As long as I kept him worrying about things like his alleged discourtesy and unpreparedness, he wouldn’t think to worry about me. I hoped like blazes he wouldn’t, anyhow.

While we were waiting, he remarked, “I did not look for your Highness to be a man of such, ah, impetuous spirit.”

“Life is full of surprises,” I said, while Max suffered a coughing fit of truly epic proportions. What sort of man was the real Halim Eddin? A placid fool, someone Essad Pasha had expected to lead around by the nose? Someone who would reign over Shqiperi while Essad Pasha went right on ruling the Land of the Eagle?

Whatever he’d expected, he’d reckoned without Otto of Schlepsig. And, if Eliphalet and Zibeon were kind, he’d go right on reckoning without me, too.

After what seemed much too long, the lieutenant who’d led me here came back to Essad Pasha’s office to report that the men were drawn up in a square not far away. “About time,” I muttered, and Essad Pasha squirmed. I gave the lieutenant my fishiest, most carping stare. “Take me there, and be quick about it.”

“Y-Y-Yes, Your Highness.” The junior officer needed three tries before he got it out. He’d watched his ferocious boss crumble before me, and that was plenty to turn him from rock to sand.

As he led us toward this square, Max bent to murmur in my ear: “Do you know what the demon you’re doing?”

“Trust me,” I whispered back, which for some reason only set him coughing again.

“I fear your aide-de-camp may be consumptive, your Highness,” Essad Pasha said, looking up and up and up at Max.

“Oh, he consumes a good deal, being the size he is, but he’s worth it,” I answered blandly. Essad Pasha lifted his fez to scratch his head. Confusing him was almost as good as intimidating him.

Row upon row of soldiers in dust-brown uniforms, all stiff and straight, all with eyes front. A bugle blared out a flatulent note. “Salute the illustrious nephew of his Majesty, the Hassockian Atabeg!” Essad Pasha cried. His voice held a certain urgency. Do a good job, or you’ll watch my head bounce in the dirt. Someone once said, Nothing so concentrates the mind as the prospect of a six-foot-eight swordsman with an evil-tempered master. Perhaps I paraphrase, just a little.

“Highness!” the soldiers roared, all together: a great blast of sound.

Not even Halim Eddin could have found anything to complain about there, and so I didn’t. I strode forward and started the review. Max started coughing again. But here, for the first time since I got to Fushe-Kuqe, I really did know what I was doing. No, I’d never reviewed troops before. But I’d been reviewed, standing in those rigor-mortised ranks. Some of my reviews were less than flattering, too. This is bad in the theater. It’s worse in the army. Say what you will of the theater, but it has no dragonish platoon sergeants.

Now things were different. Now I was the one who went through the ranks making sure buttons were shiny and crossbow quarrels sharp. When I stopped in front of one man, I saw the poor fellow’s sergeant’s neck bulge, almost as if he were a cobra spreading its hood and getting ready to strike. And he would have struck, too, if I’d found anything wrong with the man’s gear or person.

But I didn’t. All I asked was, “Where are you from, soldier?”

“From outside a little town called Adapzari, Highness,” he answered, blinking to find that the likes of me could speak to the likes of him. “You won’t have heard of it, I’m sure.”

“I know Adapzari,” I said, and I did-I’d been stationed there. Even by Hassocki standards, the place is a dreadful hole, and Hassocki standards in such matters are exacting. I didn’t say that to this poor youngster. How could I, when he came from there and now found himself stuck in another dreadful hole? What I did do was wink and poke him in the ribs and ask, “Did you ever visit the Green Panther?”

His eyes lit up. “North and south, east and west, your Highness, you do know Adapzari!” he exclaimed. Then he went on, “I’ve been by the place, but I was never in it.” That didn’t surprise me. The Green Panther is the best joyhouse in Adapzari-not that that says much-and you need piasters in your pocket to get past the door. This poor fellow likely wouldn’t have had two coppers to rub together before he got sucked into the army.

I clapped him on the back. “When you go home again, you’ll have plenty to spend there.” Then I turned to that venomous-looking sergeant. “This man is a good soldier, yes?” I hoped he was. He looked too ordinary to be a shirker or a thief, but sometimes looks will let you down.

To my relief, the underofficer nodded. “He is, Highness,” he replied, and his neck shrank till it was hardly more than half again as thick as an ordinary mortal’s. He wouldn’t want to admit he had a shirker or a thief in his squad, either.

“Good. I’m glad to hear it. I’m sure part of the reason is that he has solid men set above him,” I said. The sergeant’s neck swelled again, but this time from pride rather than fury. I could tell because it didn’t turn so red.

Continuing on through the ranks, I stopped and talked with two or three other men. I didn’t find anything wrong with any of them. A reviewer who does that kind of thing has a cruel streak in him that I lack. Essad Pasha would have done it in a heartbeat, for sport.

I nodded to him when my inspection was done. “They’re fine men,” I said. “I’m sure I’ll get good use from them.”

“Your Highness?” he said doubtfully.

“Good use from them,” I repeated. I think Essad Pasha would have scratched his head again if he hadn’t been out there in front of the garrison. I looked at the soldiers-yes, at my soldiers. Some of them still stared straight ahead at nothing. But others had a gleam in their eye that hadn’t been there before. Prince Halim Eddin made a leader they would sooner follow than Essad Pasha.

Yes, I know this is like saying tastier than an oyster stew that’s gone bad. But think how downcast I would have been if they’d found me less inspiring than their current commander!

Essad Pasha sighed. “Well, your Highness, I am glad the soldiers are to your liking,” he said. “You may be right-you may get use from them after all. Considering Vlachia to the west, considering Belagora to the north, considering the wild Shqipetari of the mountains…Yes, you may indeed.”

More slowly than I should have, I realized he hadn’t just bought his wrinkles and lines in a shop in Fushe-Kuqe. He’d come by them as honestly as you can, from cares and worries. And he’d had plenty to worry about-and still did, for the Nekemte Wars dragged on here, and Belagoran troops were laying siege to Tremist, up in the north. They actually wanted a chunk of Shqiperi, which made them all but unique among the kingdoms of the earth. Not even the Shqipetari were enthusiastic about Shqiperi, or there wouldn’t have been so many of them living in Lokris.

But, such as it was, it was mine, and I aimed to keep it. Soldiers seemed a good start.

Once the review was over, Essad Pasha had his revenge on me. He proved himself a cruel, implacable Hassocki after all. No, he didn’t stake me out in the hot sun with trails of honey leading ants to my tender places. He didn’t sharpen a stake and stick it up my…Since he didn’t do that, I won’t go into detail about what he might have done. I don’t care to dwell on it.

No, his vengeance was subtler, more refined-and more vicious. After the review, Essad Pasha threw me to the scribes.

I wouldn’t have thought that particular breed of pest thrived in Shqiperi’s rugged, bracing climate. Few Shqipetari can read or write anything, let alone journals. Considering the way (or rather, ways, for there is no one standard school-yet another proof of lack of civilization) they spell their own barbarous jargon, it’s a wonder any of them can read or write at all.