So they weren’t just out for Halim Eddin and Yildirim. They were after Otto and Max, too. But they still hadn’t figured out Fatmir and Beqiri. Well, no one’s ever figured out the peasantry of Shqiperi.
“Tell me, my dear, dear friend, how do you propose to get around that?” Max can be most difficult when he sounds the mildest. He has other character traits I find more endearing.
“We’ll get to the coast somewhere that isn’t Fushe-Kuqe, we’ll find a fisherman, and we’ll pay him to take us across the Tiberian Sea to Torino,” I replied.
Max looked at me. “As easy as that, eh?”
“As easy as that,” I said.
And so it was-n’t.
If we weren’t going to lovely, charming Fushe-Kuqe, if we weren’t going past Essad Pasha’s shooting box-where now we were all too likely to become part of the entertainment, not to take part in it-we needed to leave the main road between Peshkepiia and the port. At first, I reckoned this no great hardship. Indeed, I reckoned it no hardship at all, since in any kingdom that actually has roads the one between Peshkepiia and Fushe-Kuqe would be recognized at once for what it is: a horrid, muddy, rutted, winding track long, long overdue for repair, refurbishment (or even furbishment), and restoration.
Once we left it, though, we rapidly found out why it was the main road. All the others were worse. Yes, universally and without exception. No, I wouldn’t have believed it, either. But I saw it with my own eyes. I went into it with my own feet…and ankles…and calves…and, a couple of times, knees.
You would think a farmer could find a better place to let his hogs wallow than in the middle of what was allegedly a road. You would think so, if you’ve never been to Shqiperi. By the time you saw it for the third time, it wouldn’t surprise you any more. It wouldn’t even infuriate you any more. It would just be-how do I put it?-part of the landscape.
One other thing: hogs in Shqiperi are not the plump, placid pink porkers we turn into hams in Schlepsig. They are one short step, one very short step, up from wild boars. You can’t go through their wallows. You would resent it. If you try to go around their wallows, they are apt to resent it-and to come after you. When we bombarded one brazen beast with rocks to keep him from eating us instead of the other way round, his farmer resented it. He shouted loudly and irately in Shqipetari.
“Thou wretched, bloody, and usurping boar!” I replied in Hassocki. “Thou hast a sow for a mistress, and right sorry am I to have disturbed thy brats!”
He understood me. All over the Nekemte Peninsula, people revile one another in Hassocki, even when they don’t use it for anything else. This says something about the language and something about the Hassocki-nothing good in either case, I fear me.
“Let vultures vile seize on thy lungs!” he cried. “May thy yard rot off!”
“Thy yard is but an inch!” Max shouted at him.
After a few more such pleasantries, we went on our way. We soon found we hadn’t skirted the wallow quite well enough, for its stench went on our way with us. When we came to a small stream, we paused to clean the muck off our boots.
Max wiped at his with a tuft of grass. “This is a pain in the morass,” he grumbled.
“Look on the bright side,” I said, something he was unlikely to do without encouragement-or with it, for that matter. “Essad Pasha won’t find us as long as we keep going down tracks like these.”
“Of course he won’t.” Max threw the clump of grass into the stream. It floated away. “No one could find us here. We couldn’t find ourselves here if we went out looking for us.”
I started to follow that one through its range of possibilities, then gave it up as a bad job. We climbed to our feet and splashed across the little creek. Several frogs jumped off of rocks and into the water and swam away. They must have taken us for Narbonese.
Perhaps half a mile farther on, things got more complicated. The track we were following stopped. I don’t mean it just sort of petered out. It stopped. A considerable gully interrupted it. I considered the gully-unhappily. The track resumed on the far side. Maybe it had been made before the gully was there. Maybe, once upon a time, a bridge spanned the gap. If so, somebody’d bridgenapped it.
I peered down into the gully, wondering if the troll who’d lived under the bridge-if there’d ever been a bridge-could tell me anything. I didn’t see any trolls. Maybe he’d been trollnapped. Maybe there’d never been a troll. If there had been a troll, maybe he’d decided he was no homelier than anybody else in Shqiperi and gone off to Peshkepiia. The only thing I was sure of was that he hadn’t been in my harem.
“Well, now what?” Max asked.
If we went back, we’d have to go all the way back to the main road. Essad Pasha, Colonel Kemal, Major Mustafa, and Josй-Diego made that seem less than desirable. If we went forward, we needed wings. Eliphalet wasn’t likely to grant a prayer for them. Just on the off chance, I sent one up anyway. Eliphalet was not only unlikely to grant one, he bloody well didn’t.
I sighed. “Back to that last farm,” I said. “We need some rope.”
“Planning to hang yourself?” Max inquired.
“No-you,” I said. We glared at each other. I went on, “With rope, I may be able to get across. You may even be able to get across.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.
“I’d kill myself if I tried to swallow your sword,” I said. “What kind of a tightrope walker are you?”
“We’ve been walking a tightrope since we got here. But that isn’t what you meant, is it?” Max gave me a large, loose-jointed shrug. “Better to use the rope to get across the gully than to give it to the hangman. He already has plenty of rope to make us dance on air.”
“Try not to cheer me up any more,” I said. “I may fall over and die of joy.”
“You can die of all sorts of things in this Prophets-forsaken place,” Max said. “Now that we’re out of the harem, joy isn’t likely to be one of them.”
We walked back to the farm. Since we’d exchanged endearments with the farmer, I wondered whether he would turn his dogs-or, maybe worse, his hogs-loose on us. “Can you sell us some rope?” I called to him in Hassocki.
He looked as much like a bandit as any Shqipetar I’d ever seen, which is saying something. “What do you want it for?” he asked.
“I know a spell that will make it stand up so we can climb all the way to heaven,” I answered. The less I told him, the better off I expected to be.
The only trouble with saying what I did say was, it made him raise his price. I suppose he thought any rope that was going to heaven had to be expensive. But what a Shqipetari farmer finds expensive doesn’t badly hurt someone who’s been pawing through a royal treasury, even a small royal treasury like Shqiperi’s (smaller now-oh, yes!).
As we headed back to the gully, he wanted to follow us. Max discouraged him. Max could discourage anything this side of a mammoth, I suspect. The farmer wasn’t much brighter than a mammoth, but he was a good deal smaller. He decided he’d have to get to heaven on his own, not on our coattails. I thought his odds poor; even the Quadrate God must be more fussy about the company he keeps than that. But the Quadrate God’s companions aren’t my worry, Eliphalet be thanked.
Several tall trees stood on our side of the gully. Others leaned toward them from the far side, but not close enough-not to someone without special talent, anyhow. Special talent I had-or, at least, I hoped I had.
I handed Max my current share of the royal treasury-and if that doesn’t prove I trusted him, obstructive and obstreperous as he was, nothing ever would. I also took off my boots. Barefoot was better for what I’d have to do. That coil of rope attached to my belt, I climbed an oak that had a stout branch sticking out over the gully. My target was an outthrust branch on a tall tree on the other side.
I tied one end of the rope to my branch. Then I let myself down, and then I began to swing back and forth, harder and harder. Each pendulum swing took me farther across the gul
ly. I started to feel like part of the works from one of those elaborate mechanical clocks you’ll see in towers all across Schlepsig. That other outthrust branch came closer and closer. I reached and-missed.
Another swing, and then yet another to rebuild the momentum I’d squandered. I reached out-and caught the branch I wanted. I couldn’t pull myself up onto it with one arm. I had to let go of the rope with both hands, holding on to it with only my feet. Yes, I was glad I had toes to grip with! I wished I were a forest ape; then I would have come equipped with a couple of extra thumbs.
What I had sufficed. Once I was up on the branch on the far side, I tied the rope to it. Then I stood up and also tied the rope to a branch above it. And then, holding the rest of the coil in my right hand, I started back across the tightrope I’d created. A tightrope made a good enough bridge for me. It wouldn’t do for Max, not by itself. But if he had one strand on which to put his feet and another above it to hold on to, I thought that would be good enough to get him across.
Nothing ever turns out to be as simple as you wish it would.
“Grrr! Who’s that walking on my bridge? Grrr!” No, the troll hadn’t been there a few minutes before, when I looked down into the gully. But then, the bridge hadn’t been there a few minutes before, either.
And there he stood, on top of my strand of rope. Or possibly she-it could only matter to another troll. This one had plenty of ugly for both sexes. Green complexion. Warts. Hair. Fangs. Claws. All the standard equipment, including a bad attitude.
He might have been six inches tall.
“Come on!” he roared in a voice ridiculously deep for anything his size. “Come on, you big thing! I’ll bite your toes off!”
I didn’t like the sound of that. I wasn’t sure he could bite a toe off. He had a big mouth for anything his size, but that big? Still, when you’re on a tightrope, you don’t want anything biting your toes, even if not off. That could make your day less enjoyable than you’d like.
I thought about imitating the billy goats in the story and asking him to wait till something bigger and tastier came along. But I wasn’t convinced Max is tastier than I am. I’m still not, as a matter of fact. And, even more to the point, I wasn’t convinced he could knock the troll off the rope-I should say, the bridge-even if he went across it wearing boots.
The burdens of a kingdom still lay on my shoulders, even though the kingdom was gone. It hardly seemed fair.
I took a step toward the troll. He gnashed those unpleasant-looking teeth. “Why don’t you be reasonable?” I said-reasonably. “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have a bridge where you could annoy people.”
“And so? I’ve got one now!” The troll rushed toward me. Running along a rope didn’t bother him at all.
I had the rest of the rope, though. I snapped it as if cracking a whip. It caught the troll right in his trollish chops. He let out a squawk-this time one of surprise and dismay, not one of bad-tempered rage. And he went flying, nasty little arms flailing uselessly, out and down into the gully. I hoped a ferret would eat him. Just what he deserved, though he’d probably give the beast heartburn.
Of course, I fell off the tightrope, too. You don’t make a violent motion like that on a rope without paying for it. But I’d known I would. I caught the rope as I went down, and pulled myself back up onto it. Then I gathered up the second strand again and finished taking it back across the gully.
“Well, that was entertaining,” Max said when I got back to the side where he waited.
“So glad you were amused,” I said. A lot of things are more entertaining to watch than to do. I would put being attacked by a miniature troll while you’re walking a tightrope fairly high on the list. “Now that we’ve got a length of rope for you to hold on to while you cross, do you think you can make it over the gully?”
“I think I’d better,” Max said, which showed good sense. “And I think you’d better carry the money.”
“I’ll do that,” I promised. “You didn’t run off with it while I was going across. I won’t, either.”
“I should say not. Where would you run to?” Max said. “Ah, do you suppose that thing you larruped is likely to come back?”
“I hope not,” I said sincerely. “If you want to leave your boots on while you’re crossing, maybe you can squash it flat if it does, or at least kick it off again.” I didn’t believe it, but you shouldn’t discourage somebody who may have to try something hard.
And Max nodded in something that looked like approval. Who would have believed it? “Good idea,” he said. “How did you come up with it?” He climbed the tree. He is, to put it mildly, inelegant at such pursuits. If there were monkeys in Shqiperi, they would have killed themselves laughing. Maybe there are no monkeys in Shqiperi because they spent too much time watching clumsy tree-climbers and laughed themselves to death. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit.
Max was every bit as ungraceful-maybe even disgraceful-edging out across my makeshift bridge. Did he hang on tight to the top strand? Oh, you might say so. Yes, you just might. Did he get from this side of the gully to that one? Yes, he did, and how can you ask for more?
I suspect the nonexistent monkey would have laughed at me, too. You cannot haul two sacks of silver up into a tree and look good while you’re doing it. I started across the rope again. I’d got most of the way across when…
“Grr! Who’s that walking on my bridge? Grrr!”
He’d learned his lines well; I will say that for him. But nobody’d blocked his moves for him. I was almost to the far side of the gully, and there he stood, back in the middle of the rope bridge. I said, “Please don’t eat me, Master Troll.”
“Why not?” he roared-a damn good roar for his size, I must say.
Because you’d explode if you tried. But no, I didn’t tell him that. Since I’d been thinking of it earlier, I gave him the time-honored answer instead: “Because the fellow who’s coming after me is much larger and juicier and tastier, that’s why.”
“Juicy,” the troll said, and then, “All right. You can cross. I’ll wait for him.”
Cross I did. As far as I know, the troll is waiting yet. Oh, it’s possible some Shqipetar has tried to cross by the rope bridge. If he did, a grouchy little troll would have annoyed him. But more likely the miserable green nuisance is still standing there. Many good-byes to him.
Max had had the sense to get down from the tree on the far side of the gully before I crossed over to it. When I’d descended, too, he asked, “Well, what now?”
“Now on to the coast,” I said, “and let’s hope we don’t run into any more trolls. That little pest may have some big friends.”
I don’t think I’ll put Eliphalet and Zibeon out of business any time soon, but that was one of the best prophesies I ended up wishing I’d never made.
I didn’t have to worry about building my own bridge over this gully. A wooden span that looked as old as time already crossed it. The bridge seemed solid enough, though. It certainly had no trouble bearing the weight of the troll who appeared in the middle of it as soon as Max and I started across.
“Grrr!” he roared. “Who’s that walking on my bridge? Grrr!” Yes, the same old tired line. It sounded much more impressive coming from him than it had from the other one, because he was at least as tall as Max and about four times as wide.
“You and your big mouth,” Max said to me.
Since I was thinking the same thing, I couldn’t even snarl at him. Oh, maybe-probably, even-the troll would have appeared if I hadn’t predicted it. That didn’t make me feel any better. A six-inch troll was ugly and annoying. A six-foot-eight troll was even uglier and much too likely to be lethal. This fellow had warts the size of his little cousin. I might have resigned myself to those. But he also had fangs and talons about the size of his little cousin. By all appearances, he intended to use them, too.
“Do you suppose he’s as smart as the little one was?” Max asked out of the side of his mouth.
I eyed t
he troll. “I don’t think he’ll put the Seventeen Sages out of business any time soon, or even Ibrahim the Wise.”
Max snorted. “Ah, good old Joe,” he murmured, remembering the tubby Torinan who’d worked for Dooger and Cark. “I wonder if his demon’s devoured him yet.” And then he did something that convinced me he was no threat to the Seventeen Sages, either: he drew his sword and advanced on the troll.
I drew my sword, too, and went after him. I didn’t want him to die out there on the bridge by himself, but I didn’t really think both of us together could take out that mass of muscles and claws and teeth.
“Grrr!” The troll got louder and angrier as we got closer. Any moment now, he was going to charge. That might be…unpleasant.
“You’re not so tough,” Max said, and I wondered if he’d come unhinged. Well, no-I didn’t wonder, not even a little bit. I was convinced.
Even the troll seemed surprised. “Who says?” he bellowed. “I’ll show you!” By then, we were close enough to be sure he’d never made the acquaintance of a fangbrush-or if he had, he desperately needed a new brand of fangpaste.
But Max just repeated, “You’re not so tough.” He brandished his blade. “If you’re so tough,” he went on, “let’s see you do this.” He threw back his head and swallowed the sword, or enough of it as makes no difference.
The troll’s beady, bloodshot eyes went wide. He jumped up and down on the bridge in his excitement, which made those old, old timbers creak more than I wished they would. “Gimme that! Gimme that!” he shouted, and held out a spiked hand. “You’ll see!”
Max bowed and handed the troll the sword. Down the creature’s throat it went-one great thrust. And we saw. And it wasn’t pretty, I’m afraid. After the thrashing stopped at last, Max extracted the sword from the dead troll’s gullet. Eyeing the gore on it with distaste, he said, “Well, you were right. He wasn’t very smart. But I’ll really have to get this steam-cleaned before I use it professionally again.”
“I’m sorry for you,” I said.
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