“If they put a perfumery next to a place where they pour fertilizer into sacks…” Max whispered.

“That’s holiness you smell,” I said.

“Well, they ought to keep it on ice in the summertime,” Max said. “It’s gone off.”

A horrible noise burst from a set of risers to our left. No, they weren’t throwing cats into bubbling oil there, even if it sounded like that. It was a chorus of Shqipetari boys, singing my praises. So they told me afterwards, anyhow. I hate to think what they would have sounded like if they’d disapproved of me.

One boy wore a red robe, the next a black, and so on. The boy on the next step up wore a robe of the color opposite the one just below him. If you can imagine a singing checkerboard…Well, if you can imagine a singing checkerboard, I’m sorry for you, but we had one there. They also told me red and black were the colors of the Kingdom of Shqiperi. Since there wouldn’t be any Kingdom of Shqiperi till that odorous priest plopped a crown on my head, I wondered how they knew, but I didn’t ask them.

The song of praise ended on a truly alarming high note. I later found out one of the boys chose that moment to goose another, one he didn’t like. At the time, I assumed it was part of the song. The silence that fell afterwards seemed slightly stunned, but any silence was welcome then.

It didn’t last. How many welcome things do? The votary began to pray, first in Hassocki and then in Geez, the ancient holy language worshipers of the Quadrate God use. They seem to think him too ignorant to understand any more recent tongue. To me, this is not flattering to a putatively all-powerful deity, but the Quadrate God’s followers have never sought my opinion on the subject.

Every so often, the votary would pause and look my way. I would throw in a “So may it be” or a “He is wise and he is just” or a “North and south, east and west.” I spoke Hassocki, which was all right; not being a votary or acolyte, I didn’t have to know any Geez. And, as I say, I’d been to enough of these services to have a pretty good idea what to drop in when. I didn’t make any mistakes bad enough for the votary to start screaming, This is a filthy Narbo masquerading as a Hassocki prince! Boil him in tartar sauce!

When the prayers finally finished, he looked at me again. This time, he looked into me. It was an alarming sensation. He Knew. If you travel with a circus, even a run-down outfit like Dooger and Cark’s, you get to recognize that look. It does people who Know less good than you’d think. So what if you Know the answer, when you can’t find the right questions to ask? If Knowing mattered, those wizards and fortunetellers would be rich and comfortable and maybe even happy, not stuck performing for wages a bricklayer would scorn.

This holy man didn’t find the right question, either. When he looked inside me, he didn’t try to see anything like, Why is this filthy Narbo masquerading as a Hassocki prince? or even, Why is he thinking in Schlepsigian and not Hassocki? He must not have noticed that, though I think I would have. But what he wanted to find out was, What kind of King of Shqiperi will he make?

By the way his eyes widened, even that seemed lively enough. “Five,” he spluttered, and then repeated it-“Five!”-in even more astonished tones. And then his eyes didn’t just widen. They rolled up in his head, and he fell over in a faint.

Someone splashed him with water, possibly holy, possibly not. Someone else, more practical, put a flask to his lips. He slurped noisily. I hope he left one drop in there, keeping with the letter of his faith if not the spirits, but he was so thorough sucking up those spirits that I couldn’t be sure.

“Are you better, your Reverence?” one of the acolytes asked. “What did you see?”

“He will be a strong king,” the votary declared. He was pretty strong himself, but you didn’t hear people telling him about it.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Essad Pasha nodding. I really had convinced him I was what I said I was. Of course, as long as he believed that, he didn’t have to believe he’d let a Schlepsigian mountebank play him for a jackass. Believing me the genuine article made him feel better about himself. Since it also went a long way toward keeping my head on my shoulders, I didn’t mind a bit.

Essad Pasha gestured. At a wedding in a country where the bride and groom follow the Two Prophets, a ringbearer brings up the ring on a velvet cushion. Here, a crownbearer did the same duty. He was a pretty little boy, except that his eyebrows grew together above the bridge of his nose. In Shqiperi, though, this is accounted a mark of beauty among men and women alike.

The votary lifted up the crown. He set it on my head. It was heavier than I’d expected-gold has a way of doing that. “It is accomplished!” the votary cried. “Behold the King of Shqiperi!” He meant me. People cheered. They meant me, too. Acting on the stage? Forget it! I acted before the world-and the world applauded!

What is your first command for your subjects, your Majesty?” Essad Pasha asked.

I paused a moment to strike a pose. The scribes poised pens and pencils above notepads. A sketch artist recorded my likeness in a few quick strokes. Before long, the laws of similarity and contagion would send my image all over the civilized world. I wondered how many weeks or months it would take to reach the outlying districts of Shqiperi.

“Hear me, my subjects!” I boomed. Fanes to the Quadrate God don’t have the acoustics of temples to the Two Prophets, but a performer learns how to make his voice fill up the space he plays in. “Hear me! I order you to live joyfully all the rest of your days! Any who fail to obey will be severely punished!”

A brief silence followed. Some were working that out. Others were translating it for those who had no Hassocki. Only after a few heartbeats did people laugh and clap the way I hoped they would.

Essad Pasha bowed. “Indeed, a command worthy of a king!”

“North and south, east and west, may it be so,” I said grandly.

Bob the Albionese scribe was frowning. “But if he punishes them, how can they live joyfully?” he asked whoever was sitting beside him. He spoke much too loudly, a common failing of Albionese. And he wasn’t bright enough to get the joke, a common failing of scribes.

I fear Untergraf Horst-Gustav also looked puzzled. Brighter Schlepsigians have no doubt been born. Not even my kingdom would waste a capable man on Shqiperi when he could be doing something useful somewhere else. Count Rappaport got it. His only problem was, he didn’t think it was funny. He seemed too competent to belong in a backwater like this. But then, it would be just like the Dual Monarchy to send skilled diplomats to pestholes like Peshkepiia and giggling nincompoops to posts that really matter.

“For my second command…” I waited. Essad Pasha suddenly stopped breathing. If I wanted to get rid of him, if I wanted to blame him for everything that was wrong with Shqiperi, I could. I could likely get away with it, too. Although I knew much more was wrong with Shqiperi than even Essad Pasha was to blame for, I could buy myself popularity by nailing his head over the gate to my palace. “For my second command…I declare this, the day of my accession, a holiday with special rejoicing throughout the land, and I order it to be celebrated each year from now on.”

More applause, the most enthusiastic from Essad Pasha. Maybe the old villain thought I couldn’t do without him. Maybe he was even right. We never quite got to find out. Essad Pasha is dead himself these days. And I…I am the victim of an unfortunate usurpation, a king without a kingdom. Life can be very sad sometimes.

I’m getting ahead of myself again. You, dear reader, don’t know how-

And I’d better not tell you just yet, either.