After that, we didn’t seem to have anything else to say to each other. The Vlach departed. I couldn’t help wondering if the skin from which his jacket was made came from anybody he knew.

“Your Majesty.” Zogu the wizard bowed before me. “I hope my little preparation gave, ah, satisfaction last night.” He was bold enough to tip me a wink.

“I’m not complaining,” I said dryly. Max coughed once or twice. Zogu’s clever eyes slid toward him for a moment. Did the wizard know my aide-de-camp had shared the bounty? More to the point, did Zogu know what a good idea keeping his mouth shut was? I suspected he did. Mages who blab only encourage their clients to turn other mages loose on them.

“I’m glad you were pleased,” he said now. “If you were, then I take it you summoned me for some other reason?”

“You might say so,” I told him. “You will have heard the kingdom has gone to war with Belagora?”

“I think everyone in Peshkepiia will have heard it by now,” Zogu replied. “It will not hurt your name in this kingdom. Shqipetari are always at war with Vlachs, whether they have fancy proclamations or not. But what has this got to do with me?”

“The mountains in these parts are full of dragons,” I said. “I haven’t been north to the Belagoran border, but I assume it’s the same up there. Am I right?”

“I should say you are, your Majesty,” Zogu said. “And so?”

“And so there will be columns of Belagoran soldiers marching through those mountains,” I said. “Dragons might find columns of soldiers tasty any which way. Can you use your art to make sure they find columns of Belagoran soldiers especially tasty?”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he cocked his head to one side, studying me. “You don’t think small, do you, your Majesty?” he said at last.

“I wouldn’t be a king if I did,” I said, which was-I hoped-truer than he knew. “Can you do this?”

“Not right here in the throne room,” Zogu said. “I’ll need a dragon scale and a Belagoran uniform even to begin the spell. Compelling dragons is a dangerous business. No one does it without the greatest need. Hardly anyone gets the chance to do it more than once. Coaxing them is commonly wiser.”

“You will know your own business best, I’m sure,” I said. “But may I ask you a couple of questions before you go about it?”

Zogu smiled. “You are the king. How can I say no?”

“Easily enough, I suspect,” I said, which made the smile wider. “If you work this magic, dragons will look to columns of Belagoran soldiers on the far side of the border, not just on ours?”

“Certainly, your Majesty,” the sorcerer said. Yes, indeed-amusement, or perhaps deviltry, danced in his dark eyes. “I presume that doesn’t disappoint you?”

“Not a bit. North and south, east and west, not a bit,” I answered. “The Belagorans are bad neighbors. One way to make a bad neighbor leave you alone is to convince him you’re a worse one. Which reminds me-do you suppose you can get your hands on a Vlachian uniform, too?”

Now Zogu laughed out loud. “I think I might be able to do that, yes.” But before I got too happy, he went on, “Most of the border with Vlachia is swamp country, not mountains. You won’t see dragons so often in those western parts.”

“Too bad,” I said, and then, “Could you make some arrangement with the leeches, maybe? They ought to be fond of Vlachs-like calls to like, after all.”

Zogu didn’t get it-and then, all at once, he did. As he wagged a forefinger at me, he made a choking noise that said he was holding in more than he was letting out. He bowed very low. “Ah, your Majesty, surely the imp of trouble dwells in your heart.”

“Surely,” Max murmured in back of me. I couldn’t even tread on his toes. The indignities a king must put up with sometimes!

“One matter we have not discussed, your Majesty,” Zogu said: “the price.”

“What?” I drew myself up straight on my rickety throne. “You would not undertake this as a patriotic duty to your kingdom?”

By the look in Zogu’s eye, if I wanted somebody to undertake something, I should talk to an undertaker-and I should talk to him about my own funeral as long as I was there. “Your Majesty,” he said in a voice all silky with danger, “wizards have to eat no less than other men.”

“Put your feathers down,” Max advised him. “He’s joking.”

Was I? Had I been? I couldn’t very well call my aide-de-camp a liar, not without starting an unseemly row. “Name your price, magical sir,” I said to Zogu, “and we’ll see how loud I scream.”

Zogu didn’t answer right away. His calculations, I daresay, were twofold: how much the magic would really cost him, and how much the traffic would bear. I, the traffic, waited apprehensively. Once he’d added up the numbers, he did name his price.

I screamed loud enough to bring not only Skander but half a dozen lesser flunkies to the throne room on the run. I hadn’t thought I could hit that high note without being treated the way poor Rexhep was. Some of the servitors had paused to snatch up implements of mayhem before they got there. Shqipetari are always ready for brawls. Sometimes, if they can’t find one, they’ll start one for the sport of it.

Skander looked around wildly-for spilled blood, I believe. “Are you all right, your Majesty?” he panted.

“I could be worse,” I said. “The only place I’m wounded is in the pocketbook. This optimist”-I scowled at Zogu-“thinks I bleed gold.”

“Ah.” Skander paused to digest that. By his expression, he didn’t find it especially digestible. “Your Majesty has…an odd way of haggling.”

“Thank you,” I said. He blinked. One more time: if you can’t confound them, confuse them. He and the other servitors withdrew-in confusion. I nodded to Zogu. “Where were we?”

“I believe we were trying to cheat each other.” The wizard was refreshingly frank. “What price would you consider reasonable, your Majesty?”

“About a quarter of yours,” I answered.

“I see.” Zogu bowed. “Well, if I were to scream now, it would only upset your servants twice in the space of a few minutes, and for no good purpose. You may, however, take the thought for the deed.”

“Try another price, then,” I said. “Try one that doesn’t make me want to shriek.”

He did. I opened my mouth again, melodramatically but, I confess, silently. Max coughed. Max always thinks I overact. This, from the greatest ham not sitting on a dinner plate! No one gets the respect he deserves.

Zogu appreciated my performance, and he was the intended audience. Mirth sparked in his eyes. “Your Majesty is not the common sort of king,” he said, something of which for one reason or another I was often accused during my reign.

I did my best to look regally severe. “And with how many kings have you consorted?” I asked.

“I’m not interested in consorting with them.” By the way Zogu said it, he could have had tea with monarchs every day if he cared to. He went on to explain why he didn’t: “The King of Belagora is a bore, and the King of Vlachia is a boor.”

“You left out the King of Lokris,” I said.

“Excuse me. You are correct. The King of Lokris is-a Lokrian. I shall say no more.” And Zogu didn’t, not about that. Shqipetari love Lokrians even more than Lokrians love Shqipetari. You think it couldn’t be done? Well, I thought so, too.

We eventually settled on a price that, I’m sure, made both of us want to scream: the proof of a hard-fought bargain. Then we started haggling all over again, over how much Zogu should get before he cast his spell and how much should wait till word of its effectiveness came back to Peshkepiia. Not surprisingly, he wanted to get it all in advance. Just as not surprisingly, I didn’t want to give it to him that way.

Reaching an agreement there that dissatisfied us both also took its own sweet time. Nothing in the Nekemte Peninsula happens as fast as a civilized person, or even a Narbonese, wishes it would. You haggle. You have coffee. You have spirits. You have little cakes, or possibly fried mutton on skewers. You smoke a pipe. In Schlepsig, by Eliphalet’s purse, a price is a price. You pay it or your don’t, and you go on either way. Hereabouts, a price is negotiable. Hereabouts, everything is negotiable (except a blood feud-a blood feud is serious business). And the dickering is as important as the price you finally settle on.