Several girls tried to follow me out toward the doorway to the outer world. Only Rexhep’s scowls restrained them. Rexhep’s scowls, I think, could restrain anything up to and possibly including a dragon. As far as gloom goes, he gives Max a run for his money. Rexhep, of course, has the advantage-if that’s the word I want-of a real grievance against the world. No denying Max does well without it.

Rexhep unbarred the door on this side of the wall. Skander unbarred it on that side. I passed from one side to the other, from one world to another. Both the head eunuch and the palace majordomo made haste to separate those worlds again. As soon as the door closed, two bars thudded into place at the same time.

“Have you thought of a wizard for me?” I asked Skander. “I’d like to use his services this afternoon.”

“The very best in Peshkepiia, I believe, is a certain Zogu,” Skander said. “He dwells not far from the palace. If it would please you that he be summoned…”

“It would please me very much,” I said. I hoped it would, anyhow. Skander bowed and hurried away.

I went to the throne room. It was, to put things kindly, still a work in progress. That might have been gold foil pressed on the arms and legs and back of the Shqipetari royal seat. It might have been, but it looked more like the wrapping paper for nameday gifts you can buy in smart shops from the Dual Monarchy to Albion. Stranger things than a smart shop in Peshkepiia may have happened, but I can’t think of one lately.

Above the throne hung the royal emblem: a black two-headed eagle on a red background. It might have seemed more impressive if it hadn’t looked like a small rug woven for the even smaller tourist trade. A label was attached to the bottom corner of the royal emblem. PRODUCT OF ALBION, it read-so that really was a small rug woven for the tourist trade.

When I rested my arms on those of the throne, the shiny gold crackled and crunched. It was wrapping paper, then. I thought of the treasure in the strongroom. One of these days, Shqiperi would be a kingdom, I told myself, not just try to look like one.

Ah, well. We all make promises we can’t keep.

After about half an hour, Skander returned with another Shqipetar, presumably Zogu. The wizard had a sharp nose, a bristling mustache, and a pancake of hair on top of his head, the rest of his scalp being shaved. “Your Majesty,” he murmured, bowing toward the makeshift throne. “How may I serve you?”

“As you know my rank, you will know the privileges accompanying it,” I said. “You will also know the obligations accompanying it. And you will know that some of the privileges, if taken to extremes, become obligations. They can even become obligations a man is, ah, impotent to meet.”

I waited. Zogu looked clever. If he had not the wit to figure out what I was talking about, though, I wanted nothing to do with him. He didn’t disappoint me. Laying a finger by the side of his nose and winking, he said, “You want to screw your way through the harem like you were seventeen again.”

“Better than that, I hope-when I was seventeen, I was a clumsy puppy,” I said. Zogu laughed-reminiscently, I suppose, for who isn’t a clumsy puppy at seventeen? I went on, “I would like to be able to go as often now as I did then.”

“I can help you,” the wizard said. “The formulary will serve you well for a night, or two nights, or three, or maybe even four. Use it too long, though, and you will soon find you are a man of years not far removed from my own.” His chuckle had a wry edge. “Do I know this from experience? North and south, east and west, your Majesty, I do.”

“A few such nights should suffice,” I assured him. “By then, I shall have made my point.”

Zogu laughed merrily. “And I’m supposed to keep you pointing, eh? Well, just as you say, just as you say.”

Was he too clever for his own good? Men of that sort often are. “I rely on your magecraft,” I said, “but I also rely on your discretion. If your spell fails, I will do the best I can on my own. If your discretion fails, Zogu, north and south, east and west, the world is not wide enough to hide you from me. Do you understand what I tell you?”

“Oh, yes, your Majesty. Oh, yes. I have served…others who relied on my discretion. If I were to name them, they would have relied on it in vain,” he said.

“Good,” I said, for the answer pleased me. “Carry on, then-and I will carry on later.”

He chuckled again, and bowed. “May it be just as you say.”

At his feet sat a carpetbag. Had I met him in Schlepsig or the Dual Monarchy, I would have taken him for a commercial traveler with the worst haircut in the world. He began taking sundry stones and herbs and animal bits from the carpetbag. “You have everything you need?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” Zogu answered easily. “When Skander summoned me, I thought on what you might require. I was not sure I knew-he gave me no time for a proper divination-but this possibility did cross my mind.”

“Get on with it, then,” I said.

He smiled and bowed and did. He was one of those wizards who like to explain things. I always let such people ramble on. You never can tell when you’ll hear something worth remembering. “This we call here the eagle’s stone, your Majesty,” he said. It was about the size and shape of an eagle’s egg, or half an egg sliced lengthwise. The inside was lined with glittering white crystals, but otherwise hollow. “Its property is the engendering of love betwixt man and woman.”

“Engendering is what I have in mind, all right,” I said.

Zogu put some seeds into the eagle’s stone and brayed them with a pestle. “These come from sweet basil,” he told me. I didn’t know who Basil was, but I wanted the girls to think me sweet. More seeds. I recognized these from their smell before Zogu said, “Anise.” It goes into Lokrian spirits, and they’ll rouse anything this side of the dead. The wizard added more bits of vegetable material. “Rocket,” he said. Since I wanted to up, up like a rocket, if not so fast, I nodded.

Next came some scraps of what looked like thin parchment. “What’s that?” I inquired.

“The shed skin of a long snake.” Zogu winked at me. I grinned back.

After that he put in some small blue pills and used the pestle to crush them to powder. “What are those?” I asked.

Zogu winked again and powdered another couple of pills. “My secret ingredient, you might say.”

“Well, well,” I said. Since he talked about so much of what he did, what he wouldn’t talk about must have been potent indeed.

“Set the eagle’s stone under your bed before you summon your lovelies,” Zogu told me after chanting over it in both Hassocki and Shqipetari. “You will rise to the occasion, and may you win a standing ovation.”

“My thanks,” I said. “And your fee for the services rendered?” When he named it, I didn’t scream, as I would have in my private capacity. How could I, when he was increasing my privates’ capacity? I just paid him. It’s good to be the king.