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Prince Halim Eddin courteously returned the bow. “Thank you very much-your Majesty,” he said in excellent Schlepsigian. His voice wasn’t really much like mine; it was a bit higher and a lot more musical. I can’t carry a tune in a sack, but you could tell just by listening to him talk that he’d be able to sing.
I got him settled on the sofa. I brought him coffee: the thi
He raised an eyebrow. He didn’t pluck them any more. “I was going to say the same thing to you,” he answered. “Now that I see you, I see how you brought it off. The resemblance is remarkable, isn’t it?”
“It is,” I agreed. We looked all the more like each other because he had on a homburg and a sack suit I might have worn myself, even if the suit was cut more conservatively than I favor. I took a big swig of that improved coffee and said, “I daresay I’ve owed you an apology for a good many years. For whatever it’s worth to you now, you have it.”
“I don’t want it. I don’t need it.” He was still studying me. “North and south, east and west, how did you have the nerve? Do you know what Essad Pasha would have done to you if he’d realized you weren’t me? Have you got any idea?”
“I tried not to think about that,” I said.
“I believe it.” Halim Eddin poured more brandy into his coffeecup. He took another sip, then eyed me again. “Why?”
“Because it was the grandest role I’d ever have the chance to play,” I said. “I was a king. I really was a king. For five days, I was. I don’t know if that makes any sense to you…”
“Oh, yes,” he said softly. “Oh, yes. You must remember, you had five more days as king than I ever did. You had five more days as king than I ever would have, even if the dynasty survived. My dear uncle told me he would take a month killing me if I tried to go to Shqiperi. He thought I would rise against him if I did. He thought everyone would rise against him.” He let out a harsh chuckle. “And in the end, he was right. Everyone did-not that he hadn’t earned it.”
I’d never thought my going to Shqiperi might endanger the real Halim Eddin. Truth to tell, I hadn’t cared. “What did he do when he heard you-I mean I-was there after all?”
“He came to my home. He had to see me with his own eyes-he had to hit me with his own fist-before he would believe I wasn’t in Peshkepiia,” Halim Eddin said. “It was…an unpleasant afternoon.”
I didn’t think I wanted to ask him any more about that. Instead, I said, “What do you do these days?”
“I teach Hassocki. I buy and sell. I do well enough. I’m not rich, but I’m not poor, either,” he replied. “I live by your customs here. I have one wife, three children. What of you?”
“One wife and three children also,” I said. “I’m slowly easing out of performing. After I played your part, none of the others seemed to matter so much. I help keep the circus ru
“We twist the arm of coincidence again,” Halim Eddin said, “for I am a gardener, too.”
“Would you like to see what I’m up to, then?” I asked.
“Nothing would please me more,” he said. As we walked out to my plot, he found a question of his own: “And how did you like your harem?”
“It was a lot of fun for a little while,” I answered. “But do you know what? One woman is plenty, as long as she’s the right one.”
I more than halfway thought he would laugh at me, but he only said, “I have found the same thing. The right one is worth any number of wrong ones.” I opened the back door for him. He stepped out, then paused to look at what I was doing. His nod of approval was worth gold to me. “Ah, this is fine. This is fine indeed.”
“I’m so glad it pleases you,” I told him. Inside a border of roses, some red, some yellow, I grew neat rows of sweet basil and rocket and anise. I was particularly proud of the last, which is not easy to raise in Schlepsig because of the cold winters. Rocks with hollows underneath-placed north and south, east and west-sheltered grass snakes and smooth snakes; every so often, I would find a cast skin. Those crushed blue pills Zogu used…I do manage without them. Yes I do.
Halim Eddin nodded again. “Very much. Had you started it when you were younger, it would have been wilder, I think, and I might have liked it that way myself then. Now I prefer things neater and tidier, too,” he said candidly. “As we go through our lives, we all must cultivate our gardens as best we can.”
“Yes,” I said, and we stood there together in the warm sunshine.