CHARLIE STOOD AT A WINDOW of the north tower, looking over the foothills, and across the plains of Damask. There were still trees on the hills below, light green with young leaves, and on the plowed land of the plains, the dark brown of the earth was striped with rows of deep green shoots. Wildflowers grew on the banks of streams that trickled down from the hills. A light spring rain was falling, coating everything in view with a wet sheen. The view that lay beneath Charlie’s stern gaze, the thatched houses with their neat little gardens, the baby goats sheltering under the trees, the cultivated fields, carried all the promise of spring, the promise of fertility and growth and rebirth.
Charlie knew it was a trap.
From time immemorial the Gray Mountains of Noile, so called because of the smoky mist that collected in their hollows, had been considered impassable. It wasn’t that they were particularly high, but they were criss-crossed with near vertical rifts and ravines, and so covered with dense thickets of thorn trees, that they turned back the most intrepid traveler. It was only a hundred years ago that a band of political exiles from Noile, and their ragtag army of followers, carved a passage through the mountains. There they found the richly forested hills of Damask, and the smooth green plains beyond, and they made their big mistake. They stayed.
He turned his attention back to the interior of the room. It was set up for large meetings, with a long table, sixteen chairs, and decanter of water. Tapestries hung on the walls, one of them depicting a map of the Twenty Kingdoms. At one end of the room was a pedestal with a bust of Charlie’s great great grandfather, one of the founders of Damask. At the other end was a stand with a blank flipchart. Today, a glass of water had been set out at only three of the chairs. A bowl of grapes sat on the end of the table. Charlie’s uncles were by the door, giving orders to their courtiers and various hangers-on, then shooing them outside. When they were through, the two men locked the door and wearily sat down. When they looked like they were settled, Charlie took a seat also.
“I want to thank you for joining us, Charlie,” said his uncle Gregory. “It is good of you to give us some time.”
“We know you’re anxious to get back to school,” said his uncle Packard.
Charlie shrugged. He was not, in fact, particularly anxious to get back to the university. Nor was he particularly anxious to stay in Damask. And he wasn’t particularly fond of his uncles, who reminded him of a pair of elderly jackals. They were old and crafty and skinny, with lined faces and feral smiles, and they seem always to be on the lookout for carrion. He reached for a grape.
“The King,” said one of them, watching Charlie carefully, “left no heir.”
Charlie gave a short laugh. “For God’s sake, Uncle Packy. You don’t have worry about my feelings. You know by now that I’m not sensitive about it.”
The two older men relaxed. “Okay then, Charlie. You can see the situation. It’s up to us to pick out a successor to the throne.”
“What? It’s not going to be one of you two?”
“There are issues, Charlie,” said his uncle Gregory. “Noile again. Young Fortescue has got that country pretty well stabilized now, and once again they’re looking to take Damask back.”
“Great!” said Charlie. “It’s about damn time. Let them have it.”
His uncles exchanged glances. “Why do you say that, Charlie?”
“Oh, come on.” Charlie kicked back his chair and went around the table to the other window. The one that faced east, toward the mountains. “Look at them. I studied up on this during my last semester. They call mountains like those a rain shield. All the clouds bump up against them and dump their rain, and the rivers run through Noile to the sea. We get the little moisture that works its way through the valleys, and a couple of rebellious streams that decided to buck the crowd and flow west. It takes a minimum of thirty inches of rain per year to support farmland, they taught me, and we get twenty-seven.”
“An average of twenty-seven.” Charlie turned around to see his uncle Packard was now standing at the other window. There was bitterness in the old man’s voice. “Sometimes you get more. You get a good year and the crops are lush, and then the next year is even better. The third year comes and you start thinking your luck has changed and maybe you can make something of your estate after all. And then come years of drought and you’re worse off than ever.”
“Our ancestors thought it was a paradise, damn them,” said Gregory. “I’m sure it looked like that, with the grass and trees.” He snorted. “Six inches of soil over bedrock. It must have taken hundreds of years for those oaks and magnolias to grow. Once they logged them out, that was the end of it.”
“Now they’re grazing goats on the land,” Packard added. “That will finish it off in a few more generations.”
“So we’re agreed,” said Charlie, as they all returned to the table. “Let Fortescue have it.”
There was a long, meaningful silence, except the meaning of it was not clear to Charlie. He looked at his uncles and they looked back at him. Finally he said, “Okay, out with it. You asked me here for a reason, so let’s hear it.”
“Fortescue doesn’t want it.” said Packard. “All right, I know I just said he wants it, but he doesn’t think it’s worth fighting for.”
“A sensible man,” said Charlie. “It isn’t.”
“But they’ll fight for it anyway,” said Gregory. “The nobility will want to hold on to their lands and titles to the very end, and the people will stay loyal to their monarch. It’s all that patriotic indoctrination we get in the schools. Very hard to let go of, even after you’re an adult.”
“And Fortescue can’t just invade on a whim. He needs a reason. Otherwise it will damage Noile’s relations with the other kingdoms.”
“Yep, you got a problem all right,” said Charlie. He tilted his chair back and yawned. “Excuse me.”
“Unless the king is overthrown,” said Packard. “Unless there’s a revolution. Lot of civil unrest and all that.”
“Right,” said Gregory. “Then everyone will be happy when Fortescue comes in and restores order.”
“What?” Charlie brought his chair forward with a clack. He frowned at his two uncles until the puzzle pieced itself together in his head. Then he laughed, long and hard. “I get it. I get it! You’ve sold out! Fortescue is paying you to turn the country over to him.”
“I resent that accusation,” Gregory started. “We…”
“All right, yes!” snapped Packard. “We sold out. Does that bother you, Charlie? You already said Damask would be better off under Noile rule. And you never cared much for the place anyway.”
“I still don’t. And don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with it. Hell, I admire you two for it. I’m glad somebody will finally get something out of this wretched little country.”
Packard relaxed. “Okay then. We need a bad king. Someone to raise taxes, abuse his power, anger the nobility, oppress the commoners, and give both classes someone to rise up against. Then Fortescue moves in on the pretext of restoring order, arrests the king, sends him off to a comfortable exile, places his puppet on the throne, and pays us off.”
“Sounds like a plan. Not that I care all that much, but mild curiosity compels me to ask: Just what poor schlub do you plan to put on the throne? Cousin Richard? Abusive and oppressive doesn’t really sound like his forte. And who is that kid Aunt Lydia dotes on? James? Jason? I think he’d have a little problem inciting an uprising. The worst thing I can imagine him doing is forgetting to feed his goldfish.”
“It’s not an easy decision to make,” said Gregory. “So many members of our family are well qualified and deserve to rule. To be crowned King of Damask is an honor that…”
“We were hoping you would do it,” said Packard.
Charlie stared at him.
Compared to most other young adults, Charlie had been around a bit. He had traveled all over Damask and Noile, and had paid visits to the courts of all the surrounding kingdoms. He had caroused in their cities and read in their libraries. He had even been to sea for a short while. He had studied at Bitburgen which, like any famous university, was well skilled in the art of convincing its students that they learned more than they did. All this had left him with the impression that he was knowledgeable about the world at large, and that no one in Damask could say or do anything that would surprise him.
But now he had to admit he was taken aback. He looked from one uncle to the next, did it again, and finally said, “Why me?”
“It will be a tough job, Charlie. We won’t deny that. The new king will have to make a lot of tremendously unpopular decisions. All hands will be turned against him.”
“All kings have their detractors. And what does it matter? Unless I’m totally misreading the situation, you’re going to be running things behind the throne anyway.”
“The problem is that we still have to live here afterward, Charlie,” said Gregory. “So does the rest of the family. So do all the nobility. We can’t lose the country and then stick around. Even if we have to relocate back to Noile, it will be no different. We’ve all got relatives and connections and investments there too.”
“We need someone who can pack up and leave afterward, Charlie. You never liked it here. We know you didn’t plan to come back. Fortescue will depose you, there will be a bit of a show trial, and then you’ll be exiled on pain of death. You’ll be back in Bitburgen in time for the fall semester. I’ll bet you could even get work-study credit.”
“You’d have to fill out the forms,” said Charlie absently. “Though I really can’t see myself…”
“We’ll cut you in on the take, of course. And it will be generous. Packy and I have our faults in some ways, but we’re not greedy. You know we’ll give you a fair share.”
“That’s not an issue. My mother left me a generous legacy.”
“Everyone can use a little more.”
“So can Richard or Jason, I imagine.”
“It will never work with Richard. The man is too damn friendly. You know what I mean, Charlie. Those big blue eyes, and that big smile, and that infectious laugh. Everyone likes him. The man practically oozes charisma. The people are not going to rebel against him. And even if they did, it would break his heart.”
“And then there is Jason. It’s not really that he’s fat. He’s just sort of…”
“Pudgy,” said Charlie.
“Cuddly is the word,” said Packard. “I’ve actually heard girls say he was cuddly. Like a stuffed toy, they said. Not all fat people are jolly. I’ve known plenty of fat kings who were mean bast—um—mean to the core. But you can’t be cuddly and evil.”
“And you think I’m evil?”
“No!” Packard and Gregory said, almost in unison. “Not at all, Charlie.”
“But you look the part,” continued Gregory. “You’ve got the image. You’re Bad Prince Charlie.”
“Oh, come now. You know how I got that name.”
“Most people won’t remember. You look tough, you’ve got an attitude, you always dress in black…”
“What? I don’t always dress in black.”
“You don’t?” Gregory was surprised.
“You’re dressed in black now,” said Packard.
“I’ve just come from a funeral. We were all dressed in black. You’re dressed in black.”
“Yes, but you look like the kind of guy who always dresses in black. That’s my point. You’ve got an image. You’ve got a reputation. You intimidate people. Those brooding dark eyes, that scarred face…”
“My face isn’t scarred!”
“Yes, it is. There. On your chin.”
“That’s a shaving cut. It will be gone in a few days.”
“Well, you look like the kind of guy who ought to have a scarred face.”
“I’ll mention that to my barber. I’m sure he’ll be pleased.”
“Also.” Gregory started to speak again, but stopped to give Packard a hesitant look. Packard nodded. “Once again, I hope I’m not rubbing a raw nerve or anything. Please forgive me if I do, Charlie. But there’s also the issue of your being illegitimate.”
“No raw nerve,” said Charlie lightly. “I’m okay with it now.”
“Well, you used to be quite sensitive about it. I remember at your eleventh birthday party you blacked young Cantinflow’s eye with a pork chop.”
“With a pork chop?” said Packard
“It was one of those double-thick pork chops they serve at Almondine’s.”
“Oh yes. Those are great. A pity the cooks here at the castle never learned to do them that way. Either they come out raw in the middle or overcooked and dried out.”
There followed a minor digression on the subject of grilled pork, with or without Almondine’s signature apple chutney [1], before Gregory returned to the subject.
“It’s just that some people will always support the king, no matter how much of a rotter he is. As I said before, all that stuff we teach them in schools about upholding the law and being good citizens. But when the heir is illegitimate, it makes it easier to depose him.”
“Of course, plenty of kings have been illegitimate,” put in Packard. “It’s generally not a problem unless someone makes an issue of it. We probably won’t have to make an issue of it. It would just be another card to play if we needed it.”
“I don’t know if you know this, Charlie, but after this is all over, we could have you declared legitimate by the Council of Lords. Really, Packy and I thought it should have been done years ago, but the King wouldn’t have it.”
Charlie waved his hand. “I keep telling you, don’t worry about it.”
“Well, the offer is open if you want to take us up on it. I expect someday you’ll have kids of your own, and it might be important to them.”
“I’m afraid they’ll just have to suffer the ignominy.” Charlie placed one booted foot against a table leg and slid back his chair. He stood and leaned forward with his hands on the table. “My dear uncles, you have my admiration. Selling out your country for a mess of pottage, double-crossing your highborn friends, betraying the trust of the people—it’s the kind of underhanded scheme that makes me proud to be a part of your family, however tenuously. For I can’t think of any country that more needs to be sold out, or any group of nobles that more deserve to be double-crossed than those of Damask. Congratulations.”
He clapped his hands a few times in applause, then turned his back on the old men and started for the door. “Nonetheless, you can count me out of the game. I may well be bad as you think I am, but underhanded scheming is not my idiom. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m planning to fail a lot of courses this semester and I have a lot of books that I need to ignore.”
“I understand, Charlie,” said Gregory. “Thank you for hearing us out. We’ll get someone else. I hope we can count on your discretion.”
“Of course.”
“I expect Catherine will be disappointed,” said Packard. “I’m sure she was rather hoping it would be you.”
Charlie stopped with his hand on the doorknob. “Catherine?”
“Lady Catherine Durace.”
“Lady Catherine Durace?” Charlie paused, as if in thought. “About twenty years of age, as tall as my chin, impeccably dressed, a melodious voice, slender legs, a narrow waist, a thick mane of hair as red as a summer sunset, delicate lashes, soft pink lips formed into a perfect pout, flawless light skin with just a hint of freckles across her nose, and green eyes that flash like emeralds in firelight when she’s angry, and sparkle like wavelets on a morning beach when she smiles? That Catherine Durace?”
“Ah, you know her then?”
Charlie took his hand off the doorknob. “I…think I may have heard of her.” He retraced his steps back to the conference table, pulled out his chair again, and spun it around. He looked at it thoughtfully, as though trying to decide if he should sit down again. And then he did sit down. “Tell me more.”
1. This looks like a good place for a footnote. Terry Pratchett and Susannah Clarke use lots of footnotes and they write bestsellers, so maybe I should also throw in a few.