don't involve bouncin' his lawful monarch out the door? Mister Skeeve, I'd be just as grateful as possible if you would help me get my throne back!'
'Well, ma'am,' I said. 'You know our reputation, or you wouldn't have come to M.Y.T.H., Inc. We'd love to help you, but our assistance doesn't come cheap. Uh, it's awkward, but can you handle our fees?'
Hermalaya looked crestfallen. 'Well, that's the trouble, you know. I just don't have any money. I have heard of you all, and one of the things that people told me? Sometimes you come in and help for the sake of helping?'
I winced. Just when I needed to find a way to score a lot of coins from a client, our reputation for occasional altruism came out. But, wait—Bunny promised that she would not send me a client with whom it would be impossible to win the contest I had going with Aahz. If I trusted anyone in the world, it had to be her. For the life of me, at that moment I couldn't see how I could turn this one around.
I sighed and put my chin on my palm. 'Tell me some more. Maybe we can figure something out. Why did it happen?'
'Well,' Hermalaya said, 'that of prime minister—his name's Matfany, by the way—he's been pretty good at explaining things to me most of the time. But when he found out I had the chancellor of the exchequer hand out a lot of our money to those poor people who lost everything to the bugs, he just lost his mind!'
'Literally?' Nunzio asked, with interest.
'Not exactly right out of his head,' Hermalaya admitted. 'But it was a pretty darned mean thing to do. He marched into my rooms one day, and he didn't even look at me. Normally he looks at me. A lot. But that day, he just couldn't. He said that he had just talked to the chancellor. The treasury was empty, and it was all my fault. He said I didn't have a right to hand out the money. That by just giving it out to anybody I was endangering the kingdom? Being broke leaves Foxe-Swampburg vulnerable to anybody who wants to invade it? Or have our creditors come in and claim just every little thing we have. That'd make us—what did he call it?—a client state instead of a free principality? I had gone against everything that my daddy and his ancestors had ever done to keep us from being taken over by enemies or revenuers. Matfany said he wasn't going to let Foxe-Swampburg fall like that? He said that he didn't have a choice? He was gonna have to toss me out of the kingdom for the good of everyone. Now I thought that I was acting for the good of everyone. I've been their princess all my life, and I have never done a single thing that was against them, I swear.'
'I'm sure you didn't,' I said, sympathetically.
'It was just so hurtful, all the things he said. He accused me of sitting around all day eating Cake! Now, look at me,' she said, displaying her svelte figure with indignant pride. 'Do I look like I do nothing but eat Cake?'
'Cake?' I asked. 'What kind of cake?'
'Not cake, Cake.'
Even I could hear the capital C in Cake. I guessed it was a local delicacy. 'And then what?' I asked.
'Oh, yes, and then he condemned me to death,' Hermalaya added.
'He did WHAT?' I jumped out of my seat.
Hermalaya waved a hand. 'Oh, yes, and he said he didn't have a choice about that, either? For the good of the kingdom I had to go into exile? If I could just return freely anytime I felt like it, then anything he tried to do to bring Foxe-Swampburg back into prosperity could just be undone. So I and anyone who was caught with me back in my very own homeland was subject to a death sentence. He sent all of my pages and my ladies-in-waiting home to their mamas. He didn't give me more than an hour to get my bags packed? Then he had a whole troop of guards escort me over the border? They weren't any help at all. I've never seen such discourtesy. I had to hike all the way to the next town before I could get a ride to the archduke who lives next door. He's a nice fellow. He had his royal wizard transport me here. He said you folks were the best there was at solving problems. So, here I am, all alone in this world.'
I pounded my fist into my palm. 'Well, we're going to help you.'
Hermalaya fluttered her long eyelashes at me. 'I'd be so grateful?'
'Seems to me we have three problems,' Nunzio said, ticking them off on his fingers. 'One: you've got a usurper who took over and has at least some popular support because royalty's generally carried forward by inertia. It has to take something drastic before the people want to throw them out, so some of 'em aren't gonna want her back. Second: you've got the money angle. Foxe-Swampburg is in the hole. Putting Princess Hermalaya back isn't gonna solve that. You're just changing a finance guy for a figure-head, one who by her own admission has no talent for fund-raising. The prime minister is going to be in a better position to pay our fee than she is. The kingdom might need him more than they need her.' 'True,' I groaned. 'Third?'
'Third is lack of interest from anyone to step in and help. Foxe-Swampburg's just a backwater. To be honest, Boss, deposed royalty is a dime a silver coin. We've had plenty of tin-pot kings come knocking on the door looking for help. What she needs are powerful allies to lean on Matfany to bring her back. I think the kingdom's creditors would be the best prospects, but I wouldn't sneeze at influential monarchs who have an army at hand, but what's their motivation? You can't get people to listen without a more interesting story of some kind. Something that sets them apart from all the other hereditary officeholders whose constituency tossed them out. You need an angle that sets her apart.'
An angle. I eyed Hermalaya. She was all graceful curves and big sad eyes. Nunzio was right. I'd had my share of former monarchs, oligarchs, and despots come to my new office who wanted me to put them back where they belonged. I had been grateful to say that that wasn't what I did. I did not send them to M.Y.T.H., Inc. By the same token, I would probably have sent Hermalaya away if Bunny had not assigned her to me.
'Tell me about the Cake you're supposed to have been eating,' I asked, desperate to change tack. 'How is that different from the fluffy stuff with frosting?'
'You're a Klahd,' she said, but it wasn't with the usual scorn. 'You don't know anything about the Way of Cake.
It's a holy ceremony in Reynardo, with many centuries of history behind it. I have been a practitioner since I was a little kit. My mommy had me initiated. Why, I've been serving Cake since I could only handle Cupcakes. The Way has made my life so much better than it would have been. I find peace and fulfillment in the ceremony.'
'Really?' I asked. I had the beginning of an idea. If I knew something about the culture, I could formulate a way to help her. 'May I... experience the Way of Cake?
'If you have any reason to think it will help me to regain my throne,' Hermalaya said. She sounded doubtful.
'What do you need, your highness?' Nunzio asked, 'We can get almost anything right here in the Bazaar.'
'Why, thank you,' she said, favoring him with a delightful smile that made me wish I had been the recipient instead. 'I'll make you a list. Has anyone got a little old piece of parchment?'
'Swamp Foxes pride ourselves on existing with just any kind of resources we can turn up, sir,' Matfany said. He was a decent-looking specimen. He had the long nose of every Swamp Fox I'd ever run into, which, counting him, was two. His black coat was wavy, except for the pelt on his chest and the tuft between his tall, triangular ears, which were tightly curled, and he had a pair of wire-rimmed glasses perched on his long nose. He had the sardonic look of a standup comedian, but the eyes were sincere and very serious. That kind of expression always made me nervous. It usually meant a fanatic of some kind.
'We do with what we've got, or we do without. That is the way of the Swamp Fox, from time immemorial. But we haven't got, sir. That's our problem. I am having to recreate a government out of a sea of neglect, is what I am doing. To put a sadly blunt comment upon it, out of my usually polite way of putting things, you understand? But we are broke as a shattered vase, sir.'
I stood up from my chair. 'Too bad. We don't take
charity cases very often, pal, and we're full up on our quota for the month.' Matfany stood up, a bemused look on his face.
'Sir, I don't understand.'
