Zogu rubbed the henbane to powder between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. He let the powder drizzle down over the shed tortoise scute, which he held in his left palm. As he did so, he chanted in nasal, braying Shqipetari: an unmusical language at the best of times, which this was not.

I thought I caught Essad Pasha’s name in that flood of incomprehensible syllables. I also thought I caught mine. No, not Halim Eddin’s-mine. If Zogu didn’t say Otto of Schlepsig in there-well, then he said something else, that was all. But I sure thought he did. For a moment, I was offended. How could he presume to know who I really was? But he was a wizard, after all. If he set his mind to it, how could he not know?

With an abrupt motion, he swept the scute and the henbane dust from his hand. “It is accomplished, your Majesty,” he said, with no irony in my title that I could find-and I was looking.

I got to my feet. “All right,” I said. “Let’s see what Essad Pasha is doing.”

Before I could leave the dining room, Max burst in. My distinguished minister for special affairs seemed imperfectly pleased with the world around him. I wondered why. I had the distinct feeling I didn’t really want to know.

“Your Majesty-” Max sounded as happy as he looked-which is to say, he thought the end was nigh.

“Captain, the news will wait, whatever it may be,” I said.

“No, it won’t,” Max said.

“Yes, it will,” I said in my best royal tones-so soon to be abandoned! “We must discover what our bold and clever mage has accomplished.”

“You do me too much honor,” Zogu murmured.

“I had better not,” I told him. Let him take that as he pleased. Maybe I meant his services were vital, and that I had confidence he’d done what he set out to do. Or maybe I meant his services were vital, and his head would answer if something had gone wrong. A man with a spell is generally stronger than a man with a sword. But a man with a sword can generally use his weapon faster than a man with a spell. Since Zogu was right there between Max and me, he had to be a little thoughtful…

Max seemed about ready to burst. “Your Majesty, you really do need to know-Ow!” Not entirely by accident, I’d done my best to flatten Max’s instep. The look he gave me made me wonder if Zogu was the only one who needed to worry about swords. But he did shut up. That was nice.

Each of us thinking his no doubt interesting thoughts, none of us saying anything, we walked out into the hallway. One of the palace servants trotted toward me, calling, “Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”

When I put the crown on five days earlier, I never dreamt I might tire of the title. Just at that moment, though, I rather wished people would forget I was King of Shqiperi. “Yes, Mujo?” I couldn’t possibly have sounded as apprehensive as I felt.

But Mujo said, “Your Majesty, Essad Pasha’s had some kind of fit! Come quick!”

“You see?” Zogu said quietly.

“I see,” I answered, as quietly. Max started to say something. I stepped on his foot again; I don’t know how I could have been so clumsy. “Oh, what a pity!” I told Mujo in my normal tone of voice, or as normal as I could sound while shamelessly overacting. “Take me to him right away!”

And the good Mujo did. By what he’d said, I expected to see Essad Pasha thrashing on the floor foaming at the mouth. That wasn’t what I’d looked for from Zogu’s wizardry. It turned out not to be what I got, either.

There Essad Pasha was, hurrying along toward the dungeons. Every line of his body proclaimed his urgency. Purpose gleamed in his eyes. His mouth was firm and determined.

I walked up to him. I walked past him. I walked around him. I stopped next to him. If I watched for a little while, I could see him moving. If I’d stood around for an hour or so, I might have seen him take another step. At that rate, he would get to the dungeons just a little before Colonel Kemal and Major Mustafa died of old age.

A number of fates might still await me in Shqiperi. Somehow, I didn’t think dying of old age was one of them.

“Are you satisfied, your Majesty?” Zogu asked.

“Will you listen to me, your Majesty?” Max asked.

“Yes,” I said, and then, “No.” To Zogu, I went on, “Let’s go to the treasury. You’ve earned your pay.” To Max, I went on, “Captain Yildirim, whatever it is, it will keep for a little while.”

“They’re getting ready to hang you from a lamppost out there, and me from the one next door,” Max said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I told him. “Peshkepiia hasn’t got any lampposts.”

That kept him quiet till we got to the treasury chamber. The guards standing in front of it came to attention. I had the keys to the treasury with me-what better perquisite of kingship? One by one, the locks opened. The bars came off. The door swung wide. We went inside. I unlocked the chests.

“Go ahead,” I said to Zogu. “Help yourself.”

“North and south, east and west, your Majesty, that is spoken like a king!” he exclaimed.

“Nice of you to say so,” I answered. By Eliphalet’s holy hangnail, I was still a king! I might not have been Prince Halim Eddin, the way Essad Pasha thought I was. But I had been properly crowned as King of Shqiperi, no matter who I really was. All hail King Otto I! Long may he reign! Unfortunately, King Otto I was going to have a short reign, and it would have been even shorter if he hadn’t been smart enough to realize as much.

Zogu wasn’t shy about exacting his fee, but he wasn’t greedy-or not too greedy, anyhow. “You put my honor at stake here,” he said. “Were you niggardly, I would feel duty-bound to take more.”

“If I didn’t know you had honor, I wouldn’t have spoken the way I did,” I replied. One more lie for the road, even if a lie kindly meant. The truth was, right then I didn’t care how much he took. He couldn’t carry it all away, which was the only thing that mattered to me. But this was a lie that helped me more than the truth would have.

The mage bowed very low, clinking musically as he did. “For your kindness, your Majesty, I will give you a parting gift.” He plucked a withered leaf from a pouch on his belt. “Here is a veritable tortoise leaf.”

He’d used a tortoise scute before. That I understood, even if I’d never heard the term till he gave it to me. But this…“Do tortoises in Shqiperi turn into shrubs, or maybe grow on them?” I asked.

“Not so,” Zogu said. “No one knows from which plant the she-tortoise-for it is always a she-tortoise-finds this leaf. She will not seek it if she is followed. But she carries it in her mouth with her. To get it from her, you must build a wall of stones around the nest where she has laid her eggs. The leaf has the property of breaking down any wall or door.” He bowed again. “May it prove useful to you.”

He still didn’t say he knew I wasn’t the king Essad Pasha had thought I was. He didn’t need to say anything of the kind. He just gave me a present that would help me go on being who I was, even if I wasn’t who Essad Pasha thought I was. Zogu might have worn his hair in a cut that looked like a pancake, but he was all right.

I bowed to him in turn. “It shall be a talisman, as long as my reign lasts.” No, I wasn’t going to admit a thing.

“Good fortune go with you-and with your leaf,” he said. One more bow, and he was gone.

“Now,” I said to Max. “You wanted to tell me something?”

He eyed the guards outside the door and spoke in a low voice. That didn’t make him sound any less, ah, sincere-on the contrary, in fact. “Man, things are getting critical out there! We can’t stay here any more, not after those cursed scribes-may demons take them-went and spilled the beans. More and more people know about the denials from Vyzance, and more and more people believe them. If we don’t escape right now, we’re lost. We’ll be shot!”

Shot! Brr…That was not a pretty word.

But it was obvious that my good minister for special affairs was right. If it became clear the denials were true, then nothing good would happen to us. Essad Pasha (once he thawed out anyway) and his officers would be in a fine fury because we’d led them around by the nose like that. I could picture it perfectly well in my mind. I didn’t want to wait around to see it for real.